The two commercial types of chick peas produced are desi and kabuli. Kabuli chick peas are also known as garbanzo beans. The desi type has smaller, darker coloured seed with a thick seed coat. The kabuli type has larger, cream-coloured seed with a thin seed coat. Chick peas are best adopted to the Brown and Dark Brown soil zones of Saskatchewan and Alberta where production problems of seedling blight, aschochyta blight and late maturity are less common.
Chick peas are relatively drought tolerant due to the long tap root.
They are not well adapted to high moisture areas, saline soils, soils which are slow to warm in the spring and wet or waterlogged soils. It may be advantageous to avoid seeding chick peas in low lying areas of the field, around sloughs or in areas of high soil organic matter to prevent uneven or prolonged maturity. Chick pea production works well in rotation with cereal grains such as spring or durum wheat. Aschochyta susceptible varieties should not be grown. In areas where aschochyta blight is a problem, chick peas should not be seeded in the same field more than one year in four.