DEFINING CRITICAL WEATHER EVENTS IN THE PHENOLOGY OF LENTIL FOR WINTER SOWING IN THE WEST ASIAN HIGHLANDS

As a result of the imminent introduction of irrigated industrial cropp ing systems to SE Anatolia, the current heartland of red lentil produc tion, the Turkish Ministry of Agriculture is considering ways of susta ining Turkey's globally substantial production level and major export share of lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.). One option is to introduce a potentially more productive technology involving winter sowing in the Anatolian highlands where previously only low yields have been obtaine d using traditional spring-sown varieties. Definitions of specific met eorological events and their associated probabilities of occurrence ha ve been formulated in relation to the key events in the phenological d evelopment of diverse genotypes of winter- and spring-sown lentil. The se various definitions are intended to be used in simple models which predict flowering time in lentil, given genetic and meteorological inf ormation. Meteorological data from three locations are selected to rep resent the range of continental Mediterranean environments experienced in the crop production zones of central and eastern Anatolia; the loc ations are examined for their potential use as test beds for a phenolo gical modelling exercise.