Crop Insurance Today September 2017 - 11

2016 growing season. Treatments were initiated at
the onset of bolting (approx. BBCH 53) and continued weekly until all flowers had fallen off the
plants (BBCH>69). (Please visit http://bit.ly/2tBA8NU for an explanation on the BBCH scale.)
It's important to note that canola has the ability to recover from substantial stem breakage,
particularly if this damage occurs during the early phase of flowering.
During the first three weeks of flowering, removing up to 50 percent of the flowering raceme
resulted in less than a 15 percent yield loss. Removal of 25 percent of the main raceme at any
time during flowering resulted in a 15 percent
yield loss or less. However, canola's ability to
recover was severely limited with high levels of
stem breakage (75 and 100 percent) near the end
of flowering. The yield loss ranged from 55 to 70
percent under such conditions.

CHICKPEASWashington

Chickpeas are an important crop for the Pacific Northwest and the upper plains region of
the United States and Canada. This provides an
alternative crop to the predominant cereal crops
that are grown there while also giving better grass
weed control and a disruption to the disease and
insect pest cycle of those cereal crops. Questions
were raised about the current MPCI appraisal
methods dealing with the number of pods/seeds
per plant. The loss charts also do not have some
of the most commonly grown varieties for the
large Kabuli type of beans.
This research was conducted with five widely-grown Kabuli type chickpeas in the Pacific
Northwest and studied the average number of
pods per plant as well as number of seed per
pod and yield. The five varieties were Billybean,
a locally derived variety that is slightly smaller
than the other Kabuli types; CDC Frontier; CDC
Orion; Sawyer; and, Sierra. Billybean had consistently higher average number of pods per plants
(33) compared with all of the others. Sierra had
a consistently lower average number of pods per
plant (14) compared with all of the others. CDC
Frontier (28) had an average number of pods
closer to Billybean, while CDC Orion (21) and
Sawyer (19) were lower. Sierra is the only variety
that averaged less than a seed per pod (0.8) compared with the other varieties.

CHILE PEPPERSNew Mexico

Within the past 15 years, chile pepper production methods have changed considerably. This is
due to the high cost of labor in the United States

Corn greensnap research in Nebraska. Many of the undamaged corn plants produce a secondary
ear that contributes to yield.

Table 2 CHILE PEPPERS New Mexico

Treatment

Fresh Red

Green
Yield
Ton/Ha

Control 28.8 13.0
40% Stand Reduction 28.8
12.6
60% Stand Reduction 27.0
12.7
70% Stand Reduction 27.0
13.9
75% Stand Reduction 21.2
13.8

Table 3 CHILE PEPPERS New Mexico

Treatment

Fresh Red

Green
Yield
Ton/Ha

Control 26.8 11.5
30% Defoliation 24.3 11.1
60% Defoliation 26.2 12.8
90% Defoliation 26.7 13.7

compared to other growing regions. High labor
cost has led to the use of mechanical harvesters
to pick the chile peppers, especially for red chile/
paprika production.
Growers have also gone to direct seeding with
little or no thinning of the fields so the plants
tend to grow taller resulting in changes to the
plant architecture. The purpose of this research
is to determine if early season stand losses would
affect the production of the red chile/paprika under closer plant spacing regimes.
Two red chile pepper varieties were used, with

thinning applied eight weeks after establishment.
Thinning occurred at 6-, 8-, 12-, 24- and 60-inch
spacing. (Table 2)
Production per plots did not show major differences in yield, except at the widest difference.
The number of basal branches did increase as the
distance between plants increased, which also
reduced the efficiency of mechanical harvesters.
A second trial was also conducted where the
plants were defoliated at three different stages of
growth. (Table 3)
The research shows that there is little reCROPINSURANCE TODAY®

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crop Insurance Today September 2017