How lentils grow: cultivation and cultivation technology, yield per 1 ha with video

Until recently, our country was one of the leaders in the production of lentils. In the future, peas and beans replaced the culture from the leading positions. Today, this original product is returning not only to the kitchen, but also to the fields.

Specialists-agrarians had to restore knowledge about how lentils grow and how to properly cultivate them almost from scratch. Agrotechnics of the crop is not particularly difficult. Any novice summer resident can get a good harvest of lentils in his garden.

Lentils: description, features, best varieties and varieties

Lentils belong to the legume family and are included in the group of leguminous crops. Only one species is cultivated - food lentils. This is an annual herbaceous plant 30-75 cm high. Lentil forms small bushes.

The stems of the culture are erect, faceted, branched, covered with villi. The root system is weak, thin and slightly branched. The leaves are alternate, paired, with short petioles and branched tendrils. The leaves are oval, on short petioles, with a point at the end, up to 2 cm long. The flowers are small, collected in racemose inflorescences, white, pink or purple, ovary with 2-3 ovules.

Lentil blossoms in June-July. After flowering, drooping, diamond-shaped bean fruits are formed, only 1 cm long and 0.8 cm wide. One bean contains only 1-3 seeds, which have a flattened shape with sharp edges. The color of the grains depends on the variety of lentils.

Cultural lentils are divided into 2 varieties: large-seeded, which is used for human food, and small-seeded - fodder.

Cultivation of lentils should be carried out taking into account its biological characteristics. This plant is not demanding on heat: seed germination is already possible at +3 ºС, and seedlings are able to withstand frosts down to -5 ºС. The most friendly and fast shoots appear when the soil warms up to +8 … +10 ºС to a depth of 10 cm. In this case, the shoots appear already on the 7th day after sowing. If the first shoots still die, new stems grow from the underground nodes.

Lentils, like other leguminous crops, have nitrogen-fixing nodules on their roots that enrich the soil with nitrogen.

In our country, more than half of the lentil crop is produced by small farms. The leader in its production in Russia is the Volga Federal District.More than 60% of the total crop is harvested here. It is grown, however, in much smaller volumes, in the Siberian and Southern federal districts.

The following varieties of food lentils are cultivated:

1. Green. Most varieties of this variety are large-seeded, with early sowing and late ripening. Green lentils are tall, prone to lodging. The main variety of this variety is the French green lentil de Puy. In the Russian Federation, mainly green varieties are grown: Oktava, Anfiya, Petrovskaya, Novaya Luna and others that are resistant to lodging, shedding, drought, and diseases. The grain contains 27-30% protein.
2. Red. Large-seeded (9 mm), medium and small-seeded (2 mm) varieties are grown. Small-seeded - the most early.
3. Specific. This category includes black (Beluga), Spanish brown small-seed and orange lentils.

Landing in open ground

Culture gives good yields when cultivated on medium fertility, loose soils with good aeration, chestnut, podzolic, loamy, sandy and chernozems rich in calcium.

Heavy black soil, acidic and alkaline soils, waterlogged soils are not suitable for the plant. Sowing lentils on soil enriched with organic and nitrogen fertilizers leads to the fact that the plant forms a large amount of green mass, while the beans ripen unevenly. Their taste and quality indicators are deteriorating. Since autumn, potassium sulfate has been added at the rate of 50 g per 1 m².

Before sowing, wood ash is added to the soil at the rate of 10 liters per hundred square meters, to which 20 g of ammonium nitrate can be added. Organic matter is not added to the culture. Simultaneously with the seeds, superphosphate is added to the rows.

The crop is sown in early spring, when the earth warms up to at least +5 ºС. To speed up the germination of the grain, you can dip it in boiling water for a few seconds, and then wrap it in a towel. This treatment helps to improve the seed from microorganisms and fungal spores. You can soak the seeds for a day in a growth stimulator.

Lentils are sown to a depth of 3-5 cm, quite densely - only 15 cm between rows. 250 large seeds or 300 small ones are used per 1 m².

Lentils will decorate landscaping at their summer cottage, decor with this plant is suitable for decorating a "minimal care" garden, rustic-style compositions, edible flower beds.

Lentils can be used as green manure fertilizer for soil preparation in a greenhouse with your own hands. In this case, the crop is sown in autumn or spring and plowed in 1-2 weeks before planting the main crop.

Plant propagation

Growing technology involves the use of seeds with a germination rate of at least 85%. Pre-propagation is carried out if the sample has less than 1000 seeds, the percentage of germination is reduced or there is a desire to breed a new variety, and there is not enough planting material for full-scale crops.

The minimum number of seeds required for propagation is 800 pcs. They are sown in 4 rows with a length of 4 m and row spacing of 45 cm. The distance between plots with different varieties should be at least 90 cm. In this case, sowing is carried out in holes, the distance between which is at least 3 cm.

Lentils are self-pollinated plants, but when seeds are propagated during flowering, the flower can also be pollinated by insects, which will significantly increase the yield and yield of seeds. Flowers are examined for compliance with the phenotypic characteristics of the variety.

Growing bushes before harvesting for uniform ripening are dried with special substances - desiccants.Harvesting in small areas is best done manually.

Rules for plant care

Many people ask if it is possible to get a self-grown crop, grown like, it is not difficult to grow lentils - this is an unpretentious plant that does not require special care. The exception is weed control.

Lentils are slowly growing green mass, so at first they need enhanced weed protection and regular watering. Flowering begins 40-45 days after germination. From this time until harvest, the crop becomes resistant to lack of moisture and high air temperature.

Excessive moisture during this period slows down the ripening of seeds, so lentils are watered no more than 2 times a week.

Cultivation of lentils does not provide for the introduction of organic and nitrogen fertilizers. The nitrogen-fixing properties of lentils allow you to provide yourself with this element by 80%.

Lentils are in dire need of phosphorus. It contributes to the rooting of the plant and its development, participates in nitrogen fixation, promotes uniform flowering and rapid ripening of fruits. The maximum safe dose of phosphate fertilizers is 0.16 kg per hundred square meters.

To form a good crop, the crop needs potassium in the amount of 0.8 kg of fertilizer per hundred square meters. For the first time, potash and phosphate fertilizers are applied together with the seeds, and the second time - in the budding phase.

Sulfur is essential for a good harvest. Ammonium sulfate is applied at the rate of 0.09 kg per hundred square meters.

Disease and pest control

Main lentil diseases:

1. Powdery mildew. This is a fungal disease, which is characterized by the appearance on the aerial parts of the plant of a powdery white coating - the mycelium of the fungus. Over time, when the pest spores mature, the plaque becomes gray. The parasite prevents the plant from carrying out photosynthesis, which reduces the yield by 20%. The fungus overwinters in plant debris, and becomes active in hot, dry weather.
2. Ascochitosis. Fungal disease. On the aerial part of the plants, yellow spots with a brown edging appear, which eventually turn into brown pycnidia. The risk of disease increases in conditions of high humidity. Losses are up to 30%, defective seeds are formed on recovered plants.
3. Rust. Mycosis affects all above-ground organs of plants, as a result of which rusty-brown spots appear on them, which turn black over time. With a large degree of damage, necrosis develops on the leaves, they fall off.The yield is reduced by 30%, the seed material is of poor quality.
4. Fusariosis affects the plant completely. The leaves turn yellow and fall, the plant stops growing. If the lesion reaches the roots, they turn brown, and the plant itself dies. At the bottom of the stem, you can see a pinkish bloom - spores of the fungus. The danger of the pathogen is that the seeds of the affected plant accumulate fusariotoxins, which are poisonous to humans and animals. Infection occurs through the soil in which the spores of the fungus hibernate.
5. Root rot. The disease is characterized by the appearance of dark spots in the region of the root neck. The roots begin to rot, the vascular system of plants is affected, as a result of which they die. The causative agent of the disease are bacteria that are activated in conditions of high humidity.

To fight diseases, special preparations are used - fungicides and antibacterial agents.The best means of prevention is the selection of resistant varieties. Crop rotation, deep autumn plowing, treatment of crops with Bordeaux mixture, cleaning the site from plant precipitation and drafts are considered effective.

Lentil pests:

1. Steppe cricket. This is a black insect with developed wings. The larvae have underdeveloped wings, the eggs are white, large (4 mm in length). They eat the green parts of the plant.
2. Steppe nutcracker. These are black insects with a bronze tint, the larvae are brown. The pest hibernates deep in the soil, eating green parts of the plant.
3. Black weevil. It is a small beetle with gray hairs on the underside of the abdomen, the larvae are white with a brown head. Damage leaves and fruits.
4. Pea aphid. The insect damages all parts of the plant up to the death of the shoots.
5. Nodule weevil. The pest eats young shoots and shells of nitrogen-fixing nodules.
6. Snails and slugs. They eat young shoots.

Insecticides are used to control pests. Deep moldboard plowing before wintering is effective, which leads to the death of insects and their larvae.

Combination with other plants

The best predecessors for lentils are winter crops, corn and potatoes.

Lentils, like other leguminous plants, saturate the soil with nitrogen and are a good precursor for any subsequent crops.

Lentils are also sown with other crops. To obtain green mass, haylage, silage and seeds in the conditions of Siberia, the Volga region and the southern Urals, it is sown together with barley, wheat, peas, spring camelina. To do this, the seed is mixed in equal parts. In the south of the country, lentils are grown in combined crops with honey plant - phacelia.

Cultivation of lentils

Green lentil varieties Belotserkovskaya-24, Dnepropetrovsk-3, Novaya Luna, Petrovskaya-4/105, Tallinskaya-6, Penza-14, Petrovskaya Yubileynaya are mainly grown in Russia. The crop is grown in 13 major regions of the country.

The largest crops are harvested in the Saratov region - about 65 thousand tons, in second place - the Altai Territory (49 thousand tons), in the third - the Samara region (40 thousand tons). The yield is 7.2 centners per 1 ha.

Cleaning and storage

Beans of the crop ripen unevenly: ripening begins with the lower fruits. Harvesting of lentils begins when only 1/3 of the beans remain unripe, and the rest turn brown. Bushes are cut at ground level, and the roots are left in the ground.

Because dry beans crack and open easily, losing seeds, lentils are harvested in the morning, in the dew, when high humidity softens the walls of the fruit.To harvest the crop, a flexible header with automatic cutting height control, an air drum and a stalk lifter is used.

In food, you can use the seeds of milky-wax ripeness. They are tasty but do not store well.

Cut bushes are tied into sheaves and dried for several days in a draft in a suspended form. During this time, the remaining beans ripen. Grain after threshing is cleaned of impurities, dried in the sun, packed in sealed containers made of glass or metal.

In cardboard boxes or textile bags, lentils are stored in a dark, cool, well-ventilated area. Do not store lentils in beans. They are hygroscopic, quickly absorb moisture, mold and rot.

Threshing is carried out at a seed moisture content of 18%, and grains with a moisture content of 13% for red lentils and 14% for green lentils are suitable for storage. The grain can be dried forcibly, but the temperature should not exceed +45 ºС.

Lentils have a limited shelf life, the shelf life of grain at a humidity of 14% and a temperature of +15 ºС reaches 40 weeks.

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