Prairie lentil production has been centred in the dark brown soil zone because the growing season is too short in the black and grey soils, and the soil is often too wet for production of high quality seed.
A recent project, however, has developed lentil agronomic packages that could extend lentil production beyond the traditional production areas.
Bert Vandenberg, pulse crop research scientist with the University of Saskatchewan’s Crop Development Centre, said red lentils are an expanding segment of the market that can be exploited by expanding the production base.
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One part of the project investigated the potential for fall seeding winter-hardy lentils. It found that even with the use of a dormancy enhancer, the final plant stand and seed yield were about 50 percent of that in spring-seeded plots.
“Fall seeding lentil cannot be recommended at this time. It’s too risky,” Vandenberg said.
The other part of the project was aimed at developing agronomic packages for early maturing varieties developed by CDC and the International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas in Syria. Experiments looked at the effect of seeding date, nitrogen fertilizer rate and weed control options on the performance of these varieties.
“The seeding date experiment was conducted in 2000 and 2001 at locations representing three major soil zones: brown, dark brown and black. The results showed a large decrease in seed yield when seeding was delayed beyond the third week of May at Swift Current, Sask., the driest environment. Seed yield was maintained up to the first week of June in the moist dark brown soil zone at Saskatoon, and up to the second week of June in the moist black soil zone at Melfort, Sask.
“In all cases, locally bred varieties were much higher yielding than ICARDA varieties,” Vandenberg said.
He suggested that producers can use this information in conjunction with Saskatchewan Agriculture’s publication Varieties of Grain Crops, available at all rural service centres and on the department’s website. This annual publication lists all the lentil varieties adapted to Saskatchewan, along with information such as days to maturity, which will direct farmers to the variety best suited to their area.
Vandenberg said the experiments carried out in the nitrogen fertilizer part of the project showed no difference in yield between the plots that received starter nitrogen and unfertilized plots. However, lentil maturity was delayed in plots that received high levels of starter nitrogen.
Single-season results from the weed-control experiment carried out at Melfort, Saskatoon and the Scott Research Farm showed that pre-seeding burn off with glyphosate alone will not give adequate weed control even in lentils seeded late in spring. Vandenberg said that under high weed pressure, the use of trifluralin followed by post-emergence Sencor and Poast gave superior or equal results compared to pre-seeding glyphosate burn off followed by Sencor and Poast. He also said more work has to be done in the area of weed control.
Vandenberg concluded that farmers in the black soil zone can consider growing early-maturing lentil varieties. He suggested they look at the relatively new CDC varieties, such as Blaze and Robin, which are not only early maturing but also disease resistant, an important consideration in more northerly, wetter areas.
