WINNIPEG Ñ Lentil growers frustrated by the challenge of controlling broadleaf weeds could soon have two new varieties that are described as a breakthrough for the crop.
Two lines of red lentils resistant to the BASF herbicide Odyssey gained support for registration at last week’s annual meeting of the Prairie Registration Recommending Committee for Grain in Winnipeg.
If the Canadian Food Inspection Agency grants registration, prairie lentil growers will have varieties capable of withstanding the post-emergent application of Odyssey for broadleaf weed control.
“I would consider it a breakthrough,” said Ray McVicar, a special crops specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture.
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Bert Vandenberg, a plant breeder at the University of Saskatchewan’s Crop Development Centre who helped develop the two varieties, said there are now few options for broadleaf weed control in lentil crops.
Growers typically suffer losses each year of more than $20 million because of herbicide damage, he added. They are torn between risking herbicide damage or seeing their crops fraught with weeds.
Poor fighters
“Lentil crops are, I’ll say, notorious for their poor competition to weeds,” McVicar said.
“They’re a small plant typically unable to compete very well with a lot of broadleaf weeds.”
If all goes as hoped, the varieties could go to select seed growers for seed multiplication in 2005.
With the option of using Odyssey for a post-emergent weed treatment, lentil growers likely would be able to decrease their planting densities, he added. Planting in higher densities is one of the options for establishing a crop better able to compete with weeds.
Besides potentially saving on seed costs by planting at a reduced rate, growers could also alleviate the threat of disease because the crop canopy would not close in as quickly, setting up conditions favourable to disease, Vandenberg said.
Less lodging might also result from improved weed control and reduced seeding rates, he added, because plants would potentially have thicker stems due to being spaced farther apart.
To avoid adding to the risk of weeds gaining resistance to Group 2 herbicides, growers would have to include crops in their rotations that are not reliant on Group 2 herbicides for weed control.
The recommending committee reviews potential new crop varieties to determine whether they are worthy of registration. The CFIA considers its recommendations when deciding which potential varieties should be registered for release to prairie growers.
