Winter Lentils as a Companion Legume for Cover Crops

0:03 The last one of the winter legumes that we want to look at is winter lentils. And again we had a lot of volunteer, this was plots last year as well so I...

0:16 Had a lot of volunteer from previous plots out here and we didn't do anything to try to clean it up for you but I wanted to show you what you know winter.

0:23 Lentils are another option for an overwintering legume. It's not nearly as aggressive as batch, which can be a good thing or a bad thing. So if you're

0:33 Looking for something that's not nearly as competitive. It's not going to be by any like that batch can get winter lentils are a really good choice.

0:41 There they're a smaller plant their small seeded but they're just kind of a good plant you know we've actually had more consistency with winter lentils.

0:50 Overwintering than winter peas over the years, so this would be another option. It's not going to have the forage value that some of these other things do, but.

0:59 As a companion crop I would never plant these by themselves unless you were trying to grow the seed production on them but as a companion.

1:19 Simultaneously of lentils in general and you can see it's letting some weeds through that's kind of a bad thing but if you think about it one place I like.

1:28 To use lentils a lot when people plan a perennial pasture and which you know perennials come on very very slowly and don't necessarily hold the ground from.

1:39 Erosion initially I like to throw in a few levels into that situation because they have a leaf structure that does not let some sunlight through to the.

1:49 Developing plants underneath. They're very short-term plants, so they give way very quickly. They have good grazing value, palatability if you want to do a flash graze and take that off. But I like to throw a few lentils in to a perennial for that purpose—regime control, some early nitrogen fixation.