First commercial scale quinoa crops harvested in SE

The first commercial-scale crops have just been harvested, including 10 hectares grown under pivot irrigation by Bruce McLean, Bool Lagoon.

It follows a three-year trial by RIRDC (now AgriFutures) in five states that evaluated a large number of quinoa lines and tested different agronomic practises.

Nearly all of the gluten-free health food used in Australia is imported from South America, but trial results have shown the crop’s promise in the SE of SA – a similar Mediterranean climate – with trials yielding up to 3 tonnes a hectare.

In November, Mr McLean, the farmer who hosted the SE trials run by SARDI, took a leap of faith, sowing a red variety, Medusa.

Mr McLean says “time will tell” if a viable market can be established but there is growing interest in quinoa, especially from health-conscious consumers.

“It is along that health food line which seems to be the flavour of the month at the moment,” Mr McLean said.

Quinoa is popular in salads and soups and is the only plant food to contain all essential amino acids.

Mr McLean says the future of the 90-100 day growing crop will also depend on having contracts to take some of the risk away from growers.

Establishing a local processing facility to clean the grain to food grade standards will also be important, as will processing to remove the bitter coating of saponin before consumption.

The Medusa quinoa was sown in the second week of November with a precision planter at 50 centimetre row spacings, into a barley cover crop.

The heavy black soil paddock had previously been growing persian clover.

The quinoa was sown with about 150 kilograms a hectare of MAP fertiliser plus sulphur.

During the season it received about 120 millimetres of irrigation – similar to spring-sown clover crops.

Mr McLean says the biggest agronomic challenge is controlling fat hen, with a lack of herbicides registered for use in quinoa.

“Seed purity is the biggest issue as it is the same family as fat hen and on most irrigation country in the SE it is a bit of a burden.”

It has also required regular sprays for Rutherglen bugs and helitothis.

It was windrowed at the end of February and in mid-March was harvested, yielding 1.3t/ha.

Mr McLean was pleased with the result and said with a higher plant density 1.5-2t/ha should be achievable. 

“We really have no indication on price yet but hopefully it gives us another option for using our winter rainfall later in the season,” he said.

The South East is well-placed to be a significant producer of quinoa, according to Landmark Naracoorte agronomist James Heffernan.

But more work is needed to identify lines best suited to the region.

“Our region’s unique aspects of fertile soil, irrigation and mild weather poses an opportunity to look at specialty crops like quinoa,” he said.

“We need to find the right window – it doesn’t like extreme cold or hot so we need to be out of the frost window and not getting scorching hot summers at flowering and seed set.”

A commercial partner is also being sought.

With the limited quinoa varieties available, Mr Heffernan says the target will likely be the manufacturing sector, developing flours and other industrial grade ingredients.

“We are not going to directly compete with South American-grown organic quinoa on quality at the moment,” he said.

Mr Heffernan said a likely price was still unknown but demand was growing.

An estimated 3000 tonnes to 3500t of quinoa is imported into Australia each year from South America.