SASKATOON Ñ When it comes to selecting what kind of lentils to grow, Darren Watson says his golden rule is to make money.
“You should make your decisions based on trying to make money, so I choose lentil varieties purely on the profit I think they can create.”
Watson, who farms with his dad Ron near Avonlea, Sask., told participants at Pulse Days during the recent Crop Production Week in Saskatoon that few farmers get a premium for growing Spanish-sized lentils. So he grows for yield and volume.
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To make his variety selection, Watson first turns to local expertise.
“I’m from Avonlea and for some reason, there’s a lot of seed growers there. Just talking to everybody, you can learn a lot about the different varieties, what to expect and how their experience was in your local climate,” he said.
“However, my favourite on deciding what variety to use is to look at replicated testing. I find it’s much more reliable.”
Watson said most farmers, at one time or another, will plant two varieties beside each other on a field and then decide which variety is better.
“But there’s 100 different reasons why that could be Ñ previous cropping, timely rains, different seeding dates and so forth. As farmers, I think we’re doing a disservice to ourselves basing management just on one trial year. You should look at more research than that.”
Another factor is the variety’s variability.
“In my opinion, a red lentil has far more variability in its yield. They can yield very low, especially with Sencor damage, and they can yield very high. The large green lentil is a much tighter band. If you’re choosing your variety, you might want to consider that.”
Watson looks at his farm’s strengths and weaknesses, including local climate and crop rotations, before deciding what to grow.
“If you’re growing on wheat stubble, maybe it’s better to avoid growing a small lentil because it’s difficult to mechanically separate wheat if you can’t get your grassy weeds controlled properly,” he said.
“Disease is another factor. If you’re on a shorter rotation, a two year rotation, choose a variety with better disease resistance. Sovereign is a little bit better than Sedley. That would be a small decision I might make.”
Volunteer canola or mustard is really hard to control, especially using Sencor. Watson said with that weed problem he would grow a more competitive variety likely a large green lentil. It also deals better with kochia.
Equipment can influence variety selection.
“If you have a 12 inch spacing, a red lentil is very small and they have trouble bushing out. We’ve grown red lentils that haven’t managed to close the canopy on a 7.5 inch spacing. I know it helps with disease resistance, but you can make decisions based on your equipment.”
“I refer to production risk as variability in production. With red lentils, they go like a yo-yo on our farm. They can do great and they can do poorly. Green lentils are much nicer to grow, but if you have a No. 2 small green lentil and the price goes to 10 cents, it’s pretty hard to make money.”
Market factors tend to take a secondary importance, even though Watson said your customer always comes first. He likes to go for high yield because price is the most important thing that his customers are after, he thinks. More volume provides a better chance to turn a profit.
“In the market, a lot of times we’re told to pursue certain factors the market might want. I sort of disagree with this from time to time. You need a significant premium for any reduction in variety performance. I think Grandora was a great variety when it was brought out. However, it yields less now.”
Watson said if lentil acres are going to expand in Canada, it needs to be in the red class.
“If we grow many more green lentils, the market is going to decrease. If we wouldn’t have had that awful frost this year, we were looking at some 10 and 11 cent lentils. That’s no good.”
As he understands it, the larger market prefers a larger seeded lentil such as Blaze.
“But we haven’t seen premiums for Blaze over Robin. Glamis lentils are a bit small, but rarely are they treated as a second class lentil. Or a Milestone versus Eston. Some people prefer different ones, but generally it’s the same price.
“Sometimes you can have a lentil that the market doesn’t want all the time, but I like to grow for yield. But know what you’re getting into. If you have trouble selling a lentil, just understand that when the market is willing to buy it, you should probably sell it.”
Watson said red lentils have a history of poor agronomy.
“If you want a lesson in disease identification and treatment, grow Crimson lentils. Robin and Blaze have been great improvements, on several levels. Robin is the best choice if you have anthracnose and Blaze is easier to market and grows bushier than Robin.”
Watson said there is opportunity coming with the new red lentil varieties.
“The Redberry and Rouleau varieties are a big time innovation. The Rouleaus grow about as tall as a Richlea. That’s so nice after you’re used to trying to cut a Robin or Crimson 10 inches (25 centimetres) off the ground.”
