Just on summer holidays and ran into another gent from foremost alberta.. We starting discussing farming and both realized we strait cut lentils successfully last year and plan to do it again this year with out desiccant or roundup
I tried it for the first time last year, and other than a few spots that had bad Russian thistle, It was almost unreal how green the plant looks over all and how ripe and dry the seeds can be in the hopper.. Like no other crop I have harvested in the past.. The formost farmer said the same thing, with less over all damage to seeds and combing same time as others are desiccating..
A good knife and average speeds last year were the answer, not sure what others have found but give it a try before driving your feild down to desiccate, also maybe a plumber seed and less chance of downgrade..
bussard - you are dry again this year??
If not - you may want to stock up on lots of extra combine parts - anything to do with unload auger or clean grain / return elevators!!
Green lentil stems produce a sticky slim or glue that will plug your rotor grates if you combine very much green stuff. Good luck combining lentils with green stems.
Usually a weed problem to clean up too. Cant see how we could even think about straight cutting without dessicating first. From what I have seen, the lentils will grow right until freeze up if you let them.
I've straight cut lots of Estons, Richleas, without any desiccation. In the several thousand acres category. Never had issue with gumming anything up. If it's hot you'd be amazed how green the stems can be. Also just because you've used Reglone and the plants look brown doesn't mean they're much closer to being ready than non desiccated.
Now have just been growing LG Greens so for the most part can't really get away from some type of bringing them in either by swathing or chemical. I have let Platos ripen on there on, but with the spreads now between #1 X2 to an extra 3 the quicker they get in the bin the better. With reds not as critical. With Reds I'd be tempted to just hit them with a bit of Glyphosate.
We never had a big crop but averaged 22 bu a acre last year, but I had low spots that hit in the thirtys.. Grass green as my wife said, and no problems gumming up knife or combine, chopper had its hands full but did a real nice job with the blades in and spread the 45 feet..
For this year we have a big crop in the making, almost as good as irrigation I have been told, also put 500 ac of reds on chemnfallow that make my stubble look sad witch is also nice..
As of now I have full intentions to strait cut like last years 500 aces. Had done.. People might be surprised how well it cute and how green you can cut it, I know I was
Most people have never tried it so most think it won't work. So learn from what works for you.
I will caution you though. If you get the wrong conditions like lots of soil moisture, and more rain at the wrong time. Lentils can do funny things, if wet enough they will regrow and not dry down. Rain can flatten, shell, sprout, flatten, shell, flatten, flatten and flatten. Waiting on them will increase chances of losing yield and grade. If I was advising someone leaning to doing it this way, I would desiccate some as early as you can, than when I had those in the bin maybe the rest will be ready.
I look at it this way 15 cent lentils I might have some patients and wait, 30 cent plus just spend 18 an acre and getter done if possible. There's nothing more frustrating than watching a good crop of 30 cent plus lentils go to 5-7 cents for the sake of saving 18$. I guess it al depends on where you live....rain at harvest is common here.
For sure, I do not have a problem to desicate them to save a few weeks to harvest, but that was not the case last year as I was harvesting the same time line as others were desicating.. Took samples to terminal to check out as I forsure thought this could not be done.. Came back at 13.2 moisture and they had no down grades for the few green seeds and told me to start hauling..
I stored them in a air bin but don't think it was really needed..few pictures I took in disbelief of it being ready to thrash..
If dry, the seeds will fall out of the pods before they hit the feederhouse. But green pods are a whole different story, like trying to get a Christmas present out of that clear shrink wrap packaging.
You would be closer to wheat !! Sometimes those smaller pods can be hard to thrash out believe it or else !!
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