diff --git a/java/src/test/java/org/lance/ScannerTest.java b/java/src/test/java/org/lance/ScannerTest.java
index 00434034b64..0b07026bc68 100644
--- a/java/src/test/java/org/lance/ScannerTest.java
+++ b/java/src/test/java/org/lance/ScannerTest.java
@@ -422,25 +422,32 @@ void testDatasetScannerBatchReadahead(@TempDir Path tempDir) throws Exception {
       TestUtils.SimpleTestDataset testDataset =
           new TestUtils.SimpleTestDataset(allocator, datasetPath);
       testDataset.createEmptyDataset().close();
-      int totalRows = 1000;
-      int batchSize = 100;
-      int batchReadahead = 5;
-      try (Dataset dataset = testDataset.write(1, totalRows)) {
+
+      int totalRows = 2000;
+      int maxRowsPerFile = 100; // ~20 fragments
+      List<FragmentMetadata> fragments = testDataset.createNewFragment(totalRows, maxRowsPerFile);
+      assertTrue(fragments.size() > 1, "expected multiple fragments, got " + fragments.size());
+
+      FragmentOperation.Append append = new FragmentOperation.Append(fragments);
+      try (Dataset dataset = Dataset.commit(allocator, datasetPath, append, Optional.of(1L))) {
+        int batchReadahead = 2; // far below the default (num compute CPUs)
         try (LanceScanner scanner =
             dataset.newScan(
-                new ScanOptions.Builder()
-                    .batchSize(batchSize)
-                    .batchReadahead(batchReadahead)
-                    .build())) {
-          // This test is more about ensuring that the batchReadahead parameter is accepted
-          // and doesn't cause errors. The actual effect of batchReadahead might not be
-          // directly observable in this test.
+                new ScanOptions.Builder().batchSize(50).batchReadahead(batchReadahead).build())) {
           try (ArrowReader reader = scanner.scanBatches()) {
             int rowCount = 0;
+            long idSum = 0;
             while (reader.loadNextBatch()) {
-              rowCount += reader.getVectorSchemaRoot().getRowCount();
+              VectorSchemaRoot root = reader.getVectorSchemaRoot();
+              IntVector ids = (IntVector) root.getVector("id");
+              for (int i = 0; i < root.getRowCount(); i++) {
+                idSum += ids.get(i);
+              }
+              rowCount += root.getRowCount();
             }
             assertEquals(totalRows, rowCount);
+            // ids are the contiguous range [0, totalRows)
+            assertEquals((long) totalRows * (totalRows - 1) / 2, idSum);
           }
         }
       }
diff --git a/rust/lance/src/dataset/scanner.rs b/rust/lance/src/dataset/scanner.rs
index 7c7a082ad7e..d80ce3214e4 100644
--- a/rust/lance/src/dataset/scanner.rs
+++ b/rust/lance/src/dataset/scanner.rs
@@ -91,7 +91,9 @@ use crate::index::scalar_logical::scalar_index_fragment_bitmap;
 use crate::index::vector::utils::{
     default_distance_type_for, get_vector_dim, get_vector_type, validate_distance_type_for,
 };
-use crate::io::exec::filtered_read::{FilteredReadExec, FilteredReadOptions};
+use crate::io::exec::filtered_read::{
+    FilteredReadExec, FilteredReadOptions, FilteredReadThreadingMode,
+};
 use crate::io::exec::fts::{
     BoostQueryExec, FlatMatchFilterExec, FlatMatchQueryExec, MatchQueryExec, PhraseQueryExec,
 };
@@ -1374,8 +1376,10 @@ impl Scanner {
         self
     }
 
-    /// Set the prefetch size.
-    /// Ignored in v2 and newer format
+    /// Set the number of batches to decode concurrently.
+    ///
+    /// This bounds the decode fan-out of the scan: at most this many batch-decode
+    /// tasks run in flight at once. Defaults to `get_num_compute_intensive_cpus()`.
     pub fn batch_readahead(&mut self, nbatches: usize) -> &mut Self {
         self.batch_readahead = nbatches;
         self
@@ -2877,6 +2881,11 @@ impl Scanner {
             read_options = read_options.with_batch_size(batch_size as u32);
         }
 
+        // Bound the decode fan-out by `batch_readahead`.
+        read_options = read_options.with_threading_mode(
+            FilteredReadThreadingMode::OnePartitionMultipleThreads(self.batch_readahead),
+        );
+
         if let Some(file_reader_options) = self.resolved_file_reader_options() {
             read_options = read_options.with_file_reader_options(file_reader_options);
         }
@@ -12374,6 +12383,36 @@ full_filter=name LIKE Utf8(\"test%2\"), refine_filter=name LIKE Utf8(\"test%2\")
         assert_eq!(filtered.options().io_buffer_size_bytes, Some(7777));
     }
 
+    #[tokio::test]
+    async fn test_batch_readahead_bounds_decode_concurrency() {
+        let data = lance_datagen::gen_batch()
+            .col("x", lance_datagen::array::step::<Int32Type>())
+            .into_reader_rows(RowCount::from(8), BatchCount::from(1));
+        let dataset = Dataset::write(data, "memory://test_batch_readahead_concurrency", None)
+            .await
+            .unwrap();
+
+        // Default: threading mode falls back to get_num_compute_intensive_cpus().
+        let plan = dataset.scan().create_plan().await.unwrap();
+        let filtered = find_filtered_read(plan.as_ref())
+            .expect("expected a FilteredReadExec in the scan plan");
+        assert_eq!(
+            filtered.options().threading_mode,
+            FilteredReadThreadingMode::OnePartitionMultipleThreads(get_num_compute_intensive_cpus()),
+        );
+
+        // Explicit batch_readahead(N) bounds the decode fan-out to N.
+        let mut scanner = dataset.scan();
+        scanner.batch_readahead(3);
+        let plan = scanner.create_plan().await.unwrap();
+        let filtered = find_filtered_read(plan.as_ref())
+            .expect("expected a FilteredReadExec in the scan plan");
+        assert_eq!(
+            filtered.options().threading_mode,
+            FilteredReadThreadingMode::OnePartitionMultipleThreads(3),
+        );
+    }
+
     // The env var key scopes serial_test's lock so this test only blocks others
     // that touch LANCE_DEFAULT_IO_BUFFER_SIZE — unrelated tests still run in
     // parallel.
diff --git a/rust/lance/src/io/exec/filtered_read.rs b/rust/lance/src/io/exec/filtered_read.rs
index 059fa4e2b36..6c71a457b2b 100644
--- a/rust/lance/src/io/exec/filtered_read.rs
+++ b/rust/lance/src/io/exec/filtered_read.rs
@@ -360,11 +360,16 @@ impl FilteredReadStream {
             .clone()
             .unwrap_or_else(|| dataset.fragments().clone());
 
+        let decode_parallelism = match threading_mode {
+            FilteredReadThreadingMode::OnePartitionMultipleThreads(n)
+            | FilteredReadThreadingMode::MultiplePartitions(n) => n,
+        };
         log::debug!(
-            "Filtered read on {} fragments with frag_readahead={} and io_parallelism={}",
+            "Filtered read on {} fragments with frag_readahead={}, io_parallelism={} and decode_parallelism={}",
             fragments.len(),
             fragment_readahead,
-            io_parallelism
+            io_parallelism,
+            decode_parallelism
         );
 
         // Ideally we don't need to collect here but if we don't we get "implementation of FnOnce is
@@ -1482,6 +1487,16 @@ impl FilteredReadOptions {
         self.only_indexed_fragments = true;
         self
     }
+
+    /// Specify the threading mode to use for the scan.
+    ///
+    /// This controls how decode work is parallelized.  For the default single-partition
+    /// scan, the parameter of [`FilteredReadThreadingMode::OnePartitionMultipleThreads`]
+    /// bounds how many batch-decode tasks are buffered in flight (via `try_buffered`).
+    pub fn with_threading_mode(mut self, threading_mode: FilteredReadThreadingMode) -> Self {
+        self.threading_mode = threading_mode;
+        self
+    }
 }
 
 /// A plan node that reads a dataset, applying an optional filter and projection.