Agronomic consultant Sam Trengove, of Trengove Consulting, talks about his SAGIT-funded work into increasing lentil productivity here in South Australia. Lentil production often underperforms on the sandy soils of the Yorke Peninsula, so the first project Sam ran sought to understand the causes of low performance and to identify cost-effective methods to boost productivity. 

SAGIT then funded a two-year project looking at increasing the reliability of lentil production on sandy soils. Based on the results of the earlier project, this project included field experiments on herbicide effects including herbicide tolerant lines, variety evaluation, nutrition (especially molybdenum) and liming the previous year.

A new two-year project is now specifically focused on improving crop safety and broadleaf weed control with herbicides in lentil.

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On average, SAGIT invests $2 million a year in supporting research crucial to advancing South Australia’s $4.6 billion grain industry.

These projects deliver real improvements in countless areas of grain growing, farming systems, soil management, harvesting, storage, processing and marketing, and they also provide technical information to growers.