Europe takes a closer look at lupins

Sunday, June 7, 2015

A cost-efficient protein crop offering around the same feed value as soya but costing up to 30 per cent less, the lupin has never really hit the big time in modern European farming. But the continuing hunt for more homegrown protein could change all that

by NORMAN DUNN


There's no shortage of trial fields this year in Europe full with yellow, white and blue lupins. We've had the same picture every year for the last 20 years, though. The crop has long since proved itself in Australia as a top protein producer and a useful nitrogen fixer in sometimes poor soils. But Europe has missed out.

It's not for lack of encouragement. The European Union (EU) has massively backed research and development into lupins for livestock feed, partly to reduce dependence on imported soybeans, partly to nudge the agricultural sector out of wall-to-wall cereals and into wider, healthier crop rotations.

National efforts haven't been missing, either – for instance, three years of R&D by government and commercial organizations in Britain resulted in a program called Lupins in UK Agriculture and Aquaculture (LUKAA). Some of the biggest plant breeders have been busy developing types that mature more uniformly, although this can still be a stumbling block with harvesting of some types dragging out from September until Christmas in northern climes. This is certainly one of the reasons behind the EU Seed Marketing Directive noting recently that, against 117.4 million acres of small grain cereals crops in the union, only just under 2.5 million acres are planted to so-called pulse crops such as protein peas, field beans and lupins. Of that 2.5 million, just 125,000 acres are growing lupins. When you look at the production potential per acre in terms of feed, you might wonder why there's this hesitation. Realistic yields under the climate conditions here range from one tonne to 1.8 tonnes per acre for yellow and white types. Crude protein as a percentage of dry matter can reach a count of 40. The crop is also a top-notch nitrogen fixer through symbiosis, establishing the equivalent of 16 kilograms of N per acre in average soils, according to results from the U.K.

There have always been more lupins growing in Germany, mainly because it's a traditional stubble-sown green manure here, although lupin grain crops are slowly taking off, too. It was in that country that I first witnessed grain lupin breeding work 25 years ago. (There's a perhaps interesting footnote to this first viewing: with bitter alkaloids having been bred out of yellow and white lupins, the plants were becoming a great attraction to the neighbourhood's hares and rabbits. Just before my visit, the breeder had identified a sure-fire way of keeping these pests at bay. He had followed the tip of an old gardener and brought human hair clippings from the local barbers and sprinkled the hair around plot perimeters. This proved a perfect protection, although the hair did have to be renewed every few days to keep the feared human scent strong.)

Back in Britain, the completion of the aforementioned LUKAA program has, at last, sparked off increased interest among commercial croppers. Results show grain lupins are cheaper than other protein crops to grow. Fertilizer requirement is limited and so is plant protection input. Lupin grain has a protein density matching soybeans, meaning that less of the feed is required to supply protein needs for the milking cow compared with other homegrown sources, such as peas or field beans. Lupin grain also has higher amounts of digestible undegraded protein (DUP), which is important for high-yielding dairy cows. The lupin DUP is double that of protein peas, for instance.

Last, but certainly not least in stormy northern Europe, the modern lupin is proving much more resilient in bad weather, staying standing much longer than peas and field beans. According to protein crop specialist company Soya UK, about 80 per cent of the lupin crop in the U.K. is still harvested early on for wholecrop silage. The organization joins LUKAA in urging farmers to go for grain production as well.

As well as proving the crop as an efficient dairy feed, the LUKAA program has also trialed lupin grain in feeds for poultry and fish – with similar success. What's stopping acceptance, then? It's all down to tradition, feel advisers involved in the program.

What is needed, they say, is a few thousand acres more of the crop growing commercially in each country. More lupin grain used on-farm would probably convince elevators to reserve a bin or two for the new crop and at long last start the ball rolling for commercially viable grain lupin growing throughout northern Europe. BF

Norman Dunn writes about European agriculture from Germany.