No Till Notes: 'Field Pea Harvest'

Field pea production on our farm this year proved to be interesting, much like all the other crops we’re growing. With all the abundant moisture you would hope this would equate to bumper yields. Other growing factors such as hail, cold spring temperatures, late snow storms, late freezes, and disease made growing the field pea crop a challenge.

On our farm the field pea yields ranged from 0-70 bushels per acre depending on circumstances. I have heard of some very good yields this year around the Panhandle. I heard of dry land field peas making 81 bushels per acre in the Gurley area, and 75 bushels per acre in the Chadron area. I visited with numerous producers who had field peas in the 40 and 50 bushel per acre range.

Let’s start looking at some of the differences in growing conditions around the region and on our farm to examine why the broad range in field pea yields this year. I’ll start with the zero field pea yields on our farm.

Obviously with all the rain in the Panhandle this year came numerous storms with significant hail in them. Our farm was in the path of a couple of these hail storms which totaled out the field peas planted on some of these acres.

On these hailed peas we decided to delay terminating the crop.

Our thought was to let any field pea plants that were still alive to continue to grow and produce nitrogen. We also thought they would produce additional residues in the field. We terminated these fields after weeds became a problem.

Other fields of peas received moderate damage from the hail storms. These fields were harvested following a desiccation of the crop.

Where the field peas were thinned due to the hail and the canopy opened, warm season grasses such as foxtail became a problem along with some summer broadleaves.

In addition to the weed problem and the added expense of desiccating the crop we also had lodging in some of these fields. I believe the bacterial blight disease we had early in the growing season weakened the stalk strength which led to the lodging at harvest. Some of the lodging was so severe we were unable to run low enough with our flex head to pick up these lodged plants which led to higher harvest loss.

On our farm the earlier the peas were planted this year, the more severe the bacterial blight was in the field peas and the worse the lodging at harvest. On our later planted peas the bacterial blight was significantly less and the harvest loss was much less as well.

We only had one field of peas this year that didn’t receive hail damage on our dry land peas, and this field yielded 42 bushels per acre. We also had one field of irrigated field peas in sandy soil that didn’t have hail damage. This field yielded 48 bushels per acre which was a little disappointing.

Looking back I’m wondering if we should start planting our sandier soil fields earlier. The irrigated field on sandy soil was the second to last field we planted this year. This field was the first field to start blooming even though the field peas planted in the heavier soils were planted a couple of weeks earlier.

The irrigated field of peas in the sandier soil was also the first field to stop blooming. I’m wondering if the sandier soil warmed faster and promoted more rapid growth. I’m thinking we should plant the sandier fields first so they bloom earlier when the temperatures aren’t as warm.

We also had a field of irrigated field peas in our heavier silt loam soil that was the last field planted. This field had almost no bacterial blight disease and the plants looked much healthier all year long. We did receive some hail damage on the east side of the field. The west half of the field yielded a little over 70 bushels per acre. The east side had significantly more hail damage which brought the field average down to 64 bushels per acre. Overall I’m pretty pleased with the yield on our irrigated acres.

There is still much for us to learn in raising field peas in this region. I think this is particularly true on irrigated acres. Over time I think with variety research and experience we will become very good producers of field peas in this region.