Lentil platform: the diversity of themes and trials presented testify to the dynamism of the sector

23 May 2022

About thirty farmers and technicians met on the lentil platform located in Avail (36) to discuss lentil growing.

After a presentation of the plot by farmer Laurent Cordaillat, president of the Berry green lentil ODG and president of the technical committee, Zoé Le Bihan, lentil referent at Terres Inovia, and Pascal Lacoffrette, agronomic coordinator at Axéréal, discussed the impact of the conditions of the 2022 campaign on lentils, with periods of heat and water stress. Despite this, lentil trials on the platform located in Avail (36) are promising.

This half-day session was built around 4 workshops :

VARIETY WORKSHOP : Marie Courseau, apprentice engineer at Axéréal, talks about the Résilens project (CASDAR) which is testing, for the second year, 185 varieties from all over the world (Europe, South America, Mediterranean basin mainly). The objective is to identify whether certain varieties are tolerant to bruchid and/or certain telluric diseases, in particular fusariosis, in order to feed the lentil breeding program.

On this platform is located a trial of the Terres Inovia's post registration varieties network followed by Axereal. For the second year and thanks to the Cap Protéines funding, lentil has been able to benefit from the implementation of a variety network in the same way as other oil-protein crops. Zoé Le Bihan presents the different varieties evaluated in the framework of this lentil network. For 2022, this network is made up of 13 trials (including 2 organic trials) with 10 varieties, located throughout France (see visit document).

CLIMATE CHANGE WORKSHOP : Marion Bouviala, FNAMS regional engineer, has presented tracks to adapt the technical itinerary of lentil to the year 2100. This study was carried out in the framework of the Cap Filière Semences et Plantes, Centre-Val de Loire region. The most striking aspect is the evolution of maximum temperatures in June during lentil flowering (+4.7°C on average by 2100) as well as the number of days >25°C (+10.1 days on average by 2100), not to mention the decrease in rainfall. All this would lead to a two-week advance in the harvest compared to today.

Access to the whole presentation"Adapting the technical itinerary for lentils to climate change"

WORKSHOP ON FIGHTING BRIES : Pascal Lacoffrette, accompanied by Thomas Hecky from AgriOdor, explains how kairomone-based traps work. The synthetic scent that mimics the lentil plant attracts the bruchids and sticks them on a sticky plate, leading to mass trapping. To be effective, 20 traps per hectare must be placed in the plots. The target of this device is essentially the producers of certified lentils, organic lentils or direct sales to justify the profitability (cost ~ 120 €/ha). A network of plots equipped with this device is being evaluated this year to determine the effectiveness of kairomones on the lentil bruchid.

Pascal Lacoffrette also presented the device set up to monitor the colonization of bruchids on the plot. It is a Malaise tent, this trapping device allows to capture flying insects in the environment. The trapped insects fall into a bottle of 70° alcohol and are then sorted and identified.

WEED CONTROL WORKSHOP: Marc-Antoine Benard, experimentation technician at Terres Inovia, went through the mixed weed control trial detailing the interest of mechanical weed control according to the equipment used and the flora observed. The objective of this trial is to combine weed control solutions (mechanical and chemical) in order to reduce weeds in lentil. Other solutions could also be tested for this same objective, notably the association of other crops with lentils and mowing and raking.

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