The last three La Nina seasons have featured cool and damp finishes however a return to El Nino conditions this year has meant more typical hot and dry conditions through the Australian spring and crops struggling to finish in warm to hot days with little moisture.
Knowing that these type of seasons will happen regularly and that the ability to tolerate heat is always going to be a critical trait for Australian crops, Agriculture Victoria pulse researchers have been looking at ways to bolster heat tolerance in lentils.
With their Middle Eastern and Mediterranean heritage lentils are a tough and hardy crop that grow best in Australia's medium and low rainfall zones, however there still can be substantial yield losses when temperatures rise above 32 in the crop's key development phase in the spring.
New varieties have allowed lentil production to push further into hotter and drier regions, such as the Mallee regions through SA, Victoria and NSW, however these more marginal areas have a higher risk of crops suffering heat shock in the spring
To combat this, researchers are hunting through genetic material from ancient relatives of lentils to see if there is any genetic material that could help create lentil varieties more robust in their handling of extreme heat.
Ash Wallace, Agriculture Victoria senior research scientist, said even small gain in heat tolerance could have a big impact on the industry.
"If we can just push that figure where damage occurs up from 32 to 34 degrees or allow the varieties to better withstand periods of prolonged heat then it would be a very good outcome for lentil growers," Mr Wallace said at last month's Southern Pulse Agronomy field day at Jung, near Horsham.
So far there have been some promising results.
"We've got a lot of genetic material in the plant gene bank in Horsham and there are some lines that we hope we will be able to make use of in the future," he said.
Farmers are also looking to agronomic techniques such as sowing into standing stubble to help keep temperatures at ground level lower and plants less exposed to reflected heat off bare earth.