Growing mustard with lentils

It could be considered an inadvertent intercropping experiment. Over the years, a number of farmers have tried growing peas with canola. This year, I have a 170 acre field that’s a mixture of large green lentils and oriental mustard. It wasn’t intentional. By the time I realized there were so many mustard volunteers in the lentil crop, the lentils were getting pretty advanced to do anything about it. Then there was another big rain and I decided to just let it go. When the mustard flowered, it looked like a mustard crop, but beneath the yellow blooms there was a good lentil crop. Both matured about the same time and I used Reglone as a desiccant, which is a registered product on both. If anything, it has been easier to combine the mixture than lentils alone. The gross yield was approximately 35 bushels an acre. I bought an old rotary screen cleaner and with it too wet to continue combining we’re now in the process of separating the seed. So far, there appears to be nearly 15 per cent mustard. It’ll be interesting to see how the yield and quality compares with my other lentil crops where there aren’t tame mustard volunteers. I’m Kevin Hursh.

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