WHILE the risks are much greater than other summer crops, mung beans are the flavour of the season for many Southern Downs farmers.

The growing export demand for mung beans into expanding Asian markets has pushed prices up and more growers are wanting a piece of the action.

Clifton grain producer Kerry Cranitch and wife Maria have grown mung beans on their 400-hectare property Golden Vein, since the late 1970s, but have never seen so much of the legume crop in the ground as this year.

"A very high price for mung beans and much lower price for sorghum has been a major reason for the increase in hectares planted," Mr Cranitch said.

"It is a popular crop and a godsend for farmers," he said.

Mr Cranitch said another attraction to mung beans was its short growing season.

"It only takes three months to grow a crop. We planted in December and will be looking at harvesting at the end of March/early April," he said.

"Normally a yield of 1 tonne/ha is a good crop, so we are hopeful."

However, he is no stranger to the risks involved in growing a good crop of mung beans.

"We first grew mung beans in the 1970s, but there are a lot better varieties now and we know how to look after them better," he said.

A weekly bug check is essential, according to Mr Cranitch.

"We have an agronomist check the crop every week. We get Hugh Reardon-Smith from Landmark, Pittsworth, and he checks many crops in the district," he said.

"He checks for a flying insect called a myriad, which can sting the flower and that prevents you getting a bean out of that flower.

"No matter how well you do everything else, if you don't check for pests, it'll cost you."

Mr Cranitch said the other bug that can cause havoc in a mung bean crop is the heliothis.

"They lay eggs on the leaves and once they hatch out they bore a hole in the beans," he said.

"When it rains the moisture then gets into the bean and it goes bad and discoloured.

"It's really no different to growing beans in your garden.

"If heliothis is detected in your mung beans, farmers have to spray immediately - you can lose a high percentage of your crop if you don't act quickly."

But so far so good for the Cranitch's mung bean - the 90ha crop has 190,000 plants/ha.

"We planted the crystal variety on December 17, at a planting rate of 25kg/ha," Mr Cranitch said.

"We usually plant mung beans into barley or wheat stubble, but this year we planted the beans into last season's sorghum ground.

"The ground had a spell and lay fallow for almost six months before we planted.

"This could be the reason why the crop looks so healthy - they don't need a lot of rain, and don't like their feet wet."

Mr Cranitch said he had received 95mm of rain in November last year, followed by 53mm in December, and a fall of 104mm last month.

He also has 85ha of sorghum planted, consisting of both Pacific Seeds Taurus variety and Pioneer's G44.

"We planted our sorghum on November 11 at a rate of 80,000 seeds/ha, with 60,000 plants established. It was planted after our first falls of rain in early November, coming off a very dry winter and early spring," Mr Cranitch said.

"We mostly grew corn here until about 1971, when we grew our first sorghum, and in 1972 we sold our sorghum for $29.50 per tonne.

"Back then planting costs were a lot lower also, and we didn't fertilise as much, however our planting costs have skyrocketed since then."

Mr Cranitch said his crops wouldn't need much more rain, but the weather was something out of his control.

"At this stage, farmers in this this area are looking at attaining at least the yield level of last season's very good crop."