Mason

Tuesday, 29 September 2009 13:39

Mason has large seed size, absence of seed coat mottling, and high yields. Developed by the USDA-ARS in cooperation with the Washington Agricultural Research Center (Pullman, WA) and the Idaho Agricultural Experiment Station (Moscow, ID) and released in 1997. Mason originated from the cross ‘Laird’/‘Precoz’ made in 1982. Laird (Slinkard and Bhatty, 1979) is a large seeded cultivar developed in Canada and Precoz (Riva, 1975) is a small-seeded, early-maturing cultivar from Argentina. The cross and subsequent selection was made to combine large seed size and high biomass production of Laird with earliness and high yields of Precoz. Compared with Brewer, Mason averaged 1 cm taller, flowered an average of one day later, and matured one day earlier. Plants of Mason are strongly branched at the base, which imparts a bushy structure that enables the canopy to remain somewhat erect during the growing season. Mason has uniform large seeds (100 seeds weigh an average of 7.0 g vs. 6.0 g for Brewer). The large seeds have yellow cotyledons and the seed coats are light green and lack mottling. The large seed size and lack of seedcoat mottling of Mason are features that should appeal to markets in the USA and internationally. Go to table of lentil varieties