Despite a long, cold winter, this year’s crop of winter peas and lentils looks spectacular. That’s drawing producer interest, and while agronomists say not to go overboard, the crops have a promising future.
Past winter crops have been yielding about 40 per cent more than spring-seeded peas and lentils, and come with the added bonus of spreading the workload because they are ready to harvest two or three weeks prior to their spring-seeded cousins. They also use early-season moisture, whether there’s too much or too little of it. Also, the nitrogen that peas and lentils leave in the soil for future crops increases with yield.
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After several years of trials, Alberta Agriculture specialists figure winter-seeded peas and lentils look promising enough to encourage farmers in Alberta’s dark-brown soil zones, especially south of the No. 1 Highway, to give them a try.
“Trial plots have overwintered well at Brooks, High River and Lethbridge,” says pulse specialist Mark Olson. “But, what we see in a plot can be very different from what happens in a field. Don’t put in a quarter section until we know more about these crops. Some of our trials have had complete crop failures.”
Only the American varieties Wyndham and Specter peas, and Morton red lentils have successfully overwintered in Olson’s trials. As there’s no Canadian seed source for these varieties yet, seed has to be imported from the U.S. under an own-use permit. In theory, that’s a simple process, but that hasn’t been every importing farmer’s experience.
“I’ve heard some people have had no problems at all and others have had all sorts of hassles,” says Olson.
Decision support system
Olson has assembled the findings from plots across the province into a decision support system (or DSS), a method used to estimate the chances of a successful crop and to help judge the strength of an agronomic package. The DSS is still in draft form, but Olson will email it to interested producers.
The DSS assigns a score for each factor that’s important for success, and also highlights some “no go” situations when Olson doesn’t recommend winter pulses. The window for successful seeding is very narrow. He advises against seeding before Sept. 1 for either crop, or seeding after Sept. 15 for winter peas and after Sept. 23 for winter lentils.
Olson says poor soil moisture that won’t support good growth before freeze-up also makes winter peas and lentils a non-starter. Pulse seeds require a lot more moisture than winter wheat for germination and development of good, wellnodulated root systems.
“Good fall moisture may be one of the key things you need for winter survival,” says Olson. “But there’s more to it. We’ve had zero survival at Edmonton where we had the moisture and good snow cover.”
The ideal seeding depth is about 1.5 inches but you can seed to moisture as long as it’s not more than 2.5 inches deep, says Olson. In Alberta Agriculture trials, researchers have used a granular inoculant and Apron Maxx seed treatment with Odyssey for weed control. The field should be clean cereal stubble, preferably treated with pre-harvest glyphosate with low (under 20 lbs./acre) nitrogen levels and no manure application in the last five years.
Olson said he believes development of imidazolinone (Clearfield) winter lentil is underway.
Use plenty of seed
To give the crop a better chance, Olson has tested higher seeding rates, aiming for plant populations 1.5 and two times normal rates of seven to eight plants per square foot for pea and 10 or 11 for lentil. The seed varies in size so 1,000-kernel weight is important. The small seed size, compared to spring varieties, is a drawback when it comes to marketing, but it does allow for higher seeding rates without raising costs and higher plant populations help the crops outcompete weeds.
The crops die back to ground level when winter sets in, although there’s usually some green under the snow. Both lentils and peas have survived in more normal years than last winter with its season-long snow. In the spring, the crops start growing early, using spring moisture for lush growth. They flower early, before the heat of July blasts flowers and limits yields.
There are drawbacks to winter peas and pulses. The seeds are small and less desirable for food uses. And, in spring, “it’s pea leaf weevil central,” says Olson. Despite attracting large numbers of weevils, the crops seem to outgrow the insects.
“If these crops are successful at a farm scale, we could have two winter crops to add to rotations,” says agronomy researcher, Ross McKenzie. “Winter crops dependably yield 20 per cent more than spring wheat and it can escape pests as well as midsummer heat.”
