Prototyping and optimising lentil (Lens culinaris) mixed cropping systems under organic farming in Germany

Prototyping and optimising lentil (Lens culinaris) mixed cropping systems under organic farming in Germany

The legume crop lentil (Lens culinaris) is an excellent supplement to cereal grain diets with high nutritional value. It also has good value and potential benefits in organic crop rotation and intercropping systems for supply of biological nitrogen fixation. As the study on lentils was neglected in Germany in the past several decades, lentils have almost vanished from German cropping systems since the middle of the 20^th century. Recently, more and more people begin to realize the importance and potential of lentils and start to re-introduce the crop into German organic farming.

Lentils have a weak stalk and tend to lodge without a companion crop, and they are not very competitive with weeds which are a big problem especially in organic farming. The seed yield of lentils is still low relative to that of cereals now.

Aim of this project is to design and improve lentil cropping systems under conditions of organic farming in Germany in terms of productivity and competitiveness performance, suitable species and proportion of companion crops, lentil cultivars and sowing dates.

The results should be used to adapt lentil cropping systems to different local climatic conditions in Germany.

Important aspects and steps of this project are:

-       apply wood chips mulch to suppress weeds

-       design mixed cropping systems through different combinations of companion crops and their proportions

-       compare lentil cultivars and sowing dates at two different climatic locations

-       contrast different cropping systems by relevant indexes