39 No-till lentil: An option for profitable harvest in dry areas by Shiv KUMAR 1 *, Ravi Gopal SINGH 1 , C. PIGGIN 1 , A. HADDAD 1 , S. AHMED 1 and Raj KUMAR 2 Abstract: No-till lentil holds promise for minimizing soil and crop residue disturbance, controlling soil evaporation, minimizing erosion losses, sequestering carbon and reducing energy needs. These effects reduce overall cost of production while improving yields and returns to farmers. No-till planters have been developed that cause minimal disturbance to the soil and previous crop residues while placing the seeds in an optimum position for germination and emergence. Timely planting of lentil under no-till systems in rainfed lowland ecologies help the crop to escape negative effects of terminal water stress and rising temperatures. No-till technology has been demonstrated at farm levels, resulting in adoption by farmers in some regions. The main advantages are cost savings, flexibility in planting times and reduced water requirements. Problems with adoption relate to weeds, crop establishment and availability of no-till seeders. Varieties suitable to no-till are also needed. With awareness and knowledge of a package of practices, these issues can be overcome for widespread adoption of this cost saving and environmentally friendly technology. Key words: direct seeding, lentil, moisture utilization, reduced tillage _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1 ICARDA, Aleppo, Syria (SK.Agrawal@cgiar.org) 2 CIMMYT, Regional Maize Research and Seed Production Center, Begusarai, India Lentil (Lens culinaris ssp. culinaris) is an important food legume crop with various uses as food and fodder due to its protein rich grains and straw. Globally, it is cultivated on 3.85 million ha area with 3.59 million tonnes production. The major geographical regions of lentil production are South Asia and China (44.3%), Northern Great Plains in North America (41%), West Asia and North Africa (6.7%), Sub-Saharan Africa (3.5%) and Australia (2.5%). South Asia grows lentil on 1.8 million ha area with 1.1 million tonnes production exclusively as a post-rainy season crop on residual moisture whereas West Asia and North Africa (WANA) with Turkey, Syria, Iran and Morocco as main producers grow winter and spring planted lentil on 0.39 m ha with 0.19 million tonnes production. In the Sub- Saharan Africa, Ethiopia and Eritrea are the major lentil producers with 0.10 million tonnes production. In recent years, area under lentil has expanded in the Northern Great Plains of North America (Canada and USA) which produces 1.15 million tonnes of lentil and has emerged as the foremost production base. In these regions, lentil is grown as rainfed crop under various tillage systems including conventional as well as zero tillage. Production cost play an important role in area allocation under a particular crop. For further expansion of area under lentil, its economic competitiveness needs to be improved by reducing production cost through adoption of various resource conservation technologies. No till or zero tillage (ZT) is an important component of conservation agriculture to produce crops at low cost with profound effect on natural resources such as water and soil. This system is very effective in minimizing soil and crop residue disturbance, controlling soil evaporation, minimizing erosion losses, sequestering carbon in soil and reducing energy needs. No till (direct seeding without tillage or zero tillage) of lentil into standing stubble left after cereal (wheat or barley) harvest is becoming an option in the developed countries where soil erosion is a problem (1, 12, 14). In the no-till system of planting, seeds are placed manually or mechanically with a special seeder by opening a narrow slit in soil without much soil disturbance. The key objective is to tap residual soil moisture and leftover fertility of previous crop by the succeeding lentil crop. No till system is recommended in the USA for autumn sown lentil as a means of conserving soil moisture and to provide some surface protection to reduce winter injury to the developing lentil plants (2). No-till lentil has found favor in recent years in Great Plains of the USA, Canada and Australia where farmers grows lentil on large areas as a rainfed crop and derive benefits from diversification and export opportunities. In South Asia, the seeds of lentil are traditionally broadcasted in the standing rice crop nearing maturity or after the monsoon in fallow land without any tillage to exploit residual moisture for germination and stand establishment. This age-old practice of surface planting popularly known as paira or utera cultivation in India, Bangladesh and Nepal, is a true form of no- till lentils. The no-till method of planting, however, requires one time investment to procure suitable zero-till machine. RESEARCH GRAIN LEGUMES No. 57 – July 2011