VERNON – Winter lentils may be just what the doctor ordered to perk up the Rolling Plains wheat crop.
That doctor is Dr. Emi Kimura, a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service agronomist in Vernon.
Lentils are legumes that grow in pods on a bushy plant, and as legumes, they are high in nitrogen, which would benefit the following wheat crop, Kimura said.
She has initiated a winter lentil-winter wheat crop rotation trial with funding provided by Texas Wheat Producers Board to see if this is valuable production option.
While lentil is typically planted in the spring in the Northern Plains, Kimura said concern they might not survive the Rolling Plains summer prompted her to use the fall-sown variety Morton.
Winter varieties of canola, lentil and wheat were planted on Sept. 30, 2016, in small dryland plots designed with four replications.
Kimura said she applied insecticide March 30 as a growing aphid population was observed, especially in canola and a few in winter lentil. No fertilizer or extra water was applied to the plot.
“In our first year, we saw some positive attributes of winter lentil in the Rolling Plains, including excellent winter survival, grain production and forage potential,” she said.
Although the winter lentil was slow to fill in the rows in the fall as compared to the wheat and canola, Kimura said the lentil crop did not suffer from cold temperatures during the winter months.
The crops were harvested for grain June 6, and yields were 7.4 bushels per acre for canola, 8.3 bushels per acre for the winter lentil and 39 bushels per acre for winter wheat.
“Our winter lentil yield was lower than expected as compared to the winter lentil yield observed in the Northern Plains,” Kimura said. “We suspect the seeding rate of 25 pounds per acre used in the trial was not appropriate for our region.”
She said seeding rate is an important factor on final yield. To help determine appropriate seeding rates in the Rolling Plains, she conducted a seeding rate trial – 20, 30, 40 and 50 pounds per acre – along with the crop rotation trial during the 2016-17 growing season.
“We found that a seeding rate at 40 pounds per acre, among the four seeding rates examined, produced the highest yield of 20 bushels per acre,” Kimura said.
“We do not have a lentil market yet in Texas,” Kimura said. “However, if we continue to work on winter lentil production and accumulate enough data, I believe the market will come.”
In the past two years, lentil production has gone from about 300,000 acres nationwide to almost 1 million acres in 2016, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service.
“We believe lentil will not only add a beneficial cash crop to the rotation, but it also will greatly contribute to reducing environmental footprints,” Kimura said.