Environmental control of lentil (Lens culinaris) crop development

Abstract

SUMMARYThe lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) cultivars Titore and Olympic were sown at Canterbury, New Zealand, on eight dates, from April to November in 1984 and in May and August in 1985. Of the four important physiological growth stages (sowing to emergence (S–E), emergence to flowering (E–F), flowering to physiological maturity (F–Pm) and physiological maturity to harvest (Pm–H)), the duration of all except E–F depended upon accumulated thermal time above 2 °C. The mean accumulated thermal times for E–F, F–Pm, Pm–H were 116, 565 and 293 °C days, respectively. Stage E–F required from 1165 °C days for an April sowing to 509 °C days for a November sowing. There was a highly significant positive relationship (r2 = 0·99) between the rate of development during E–F and mean temperature. Photoperiod also affected development rate.Neither of the two cultivars studied had a vernalization requirement for the induction of flowering. In both years, the development rate during E–F was highly dependent upon photoperiod-corrected temperature. The relationships presented show that development of lentil crops in Canterbury can be accurately predicted using accumulated temperature and photoperiod-corrected temperature.