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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Contents Vol 46(10)

Narbon bean (Vicia narbonensis) agronomy in south-western Australia

M. Seymour
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

Department of Agriculture, PMB 50 Melijinup Road, Esperance, WA 6450, Australia. Email: mseymour@agric.wa.gov.au

Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture 46(10) 1355-1362 https://doi.org/10.1071/EA04091
Submitted: 10 May 2004  Accepted: 2 August 2005   Published: 13 September 2006

Abstract

Narbon bean (Vicia narbonensis L.) shows promise as a fodder, green manure and grain crop in south-western Australia. This study examines the effect of time of sowing (2 experiments), plant density (3 experiments) and reaction to herbicides (4 experiments on tolerance to herbicides and 1 experiment on removing narbon bean from a wheat crop) in 10 separate field experiments sown at 4 locations in the mallee region of Western Australia from 1998 to 2001. Narbon bean was found to be unresponsive to changes in sowing date with yield maintained until the first week of June. The optimum plant density (90% of fitted maximum) for seed yield was found to be 31 plants/m2, equivalent to sowing rates in the range of 75–100 kg/ha. A wide range of herbicides applied either before sowing or immediately after sowing and before emergence had no significant effect on grain yield. These included simazine (750 g a.i./ha), cyanazine (1.25 kg a.i./ha) and diuron (500 g a.i./ha), which were applied immediately before sowing, and imazethapyr (29 g a.i./ha), which was applied after sowing, before emergence. Diflufenican (75 g a.i./ha) was found to be the only available option for post-emergence control of broadleaf weeds. The use of the non-selective herbicides glyphosate (450 g a.i./L) and Sprayseed 250 (paraquat 135 g a.i./L and diquat 115 g a.i./L) as post-emergence herbicides was found to be unpredictable at a range of application rates. Results ranged from a yield loss of 47% to a yield increase of 23%. In an experiment to test a range of herbicides for the selective control of narbon bean within a wheat crop, numerous herbicides were found to effectively remove volunteer narbon bean indicating that narbon bean is unlikely to become a weed in most cereal cropping systems.


Acknowledgments

The Department of Agriculture Western Australia and the Grains Research and Development Corporation of Australia provided financial support for this work. Pam Burgess, Paul Hardy, Colin Boyd, Ross Trent, Noel Rennie and Colin Norwood, provided technical assistance. Neil Wandel, Andrew and Simon Longmire, Terry and Chezley Guest and Dave Osborne permitted these experiments to be conducted on their properties. The referees suggested useful changes to the text and layout of this paper.


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