Agronomic Options to Manage Pod Drop in Lentil in the Wimmera 2022

Background

In more recent cropping seasons several high wind events around the harvest period of lentil across southern Australia resulted in significant losses due to pod drop across a range of varieties. In preliminary trials at Curyo in 2019, significant variation was noted, with PBA HallmarkXT showing the worst susceptibility of released varieties (CIPAL1821 was noted to be one of the worst breeding lines).
It has also been suggested that row spacing, and direction could have an impact on the response, due to the way the crop forms the canopy, and thus the movement that occurs at maturity during high wind events.
This trial looked at combing agronomic and genetic responses to minimise yield losses from pod drop at harvest, building on related trials in 2021 at Nhill and Curyo.
The trial site located in Kalkee was previously sown with wheat in 2021 and composed of a black cracking clay soil type.

Aim

To understand the effects of stubble, row spacing and row direction on plant growth, grain yield and pod drop of lentil varieties differing in architecture and tolerance to pod drop.

Method

Trial was sown on the 23^rd of May, at a crop rate of 120pl/m². Plots were broken into eight lentil varieties sown on differing row spacing, either 30cm or 19.1cm. Plots were further separated into blocks to accommodate for row directionality, north/south or east/west, and varies stubble retention strategies. Each plot has been replicated four times, with 264 plots in total.