Lupins

[Kevtherev]

Anyone growing or grown lupins for whole crop?
Was a few growing it about 15yr ago but seems to have fallen away.
Pic for attention

 

[Sid]

Anyone growing or grown lupins for whole crop?
Was a few growing it about 15yr ago but seems to have fallen away.
Pic for attention

Gardens looking well

 

[Jimdog1]

Any idea on yield/analysis/astronomy?

 

[Kevtherev]

Any idea on yield/analysis/astronomy?

Never done anything with them myself

 

[YELROM]

Never done anything with them myself

I thought you would be in to astronomy

 

[YELROM]

A neighbour here grew them as well but they didn’t grow very tall and so were a problem to combine without them falling the wrong way off the knife onto the floor, might be different with wholecrop especially with disc cut headers

 

[Jimdog1]

I thought you would be in to astronomy

 

[Jimdog1]

I thought you would be in to astronomy

Which bit of the moon phase to plant in obviously. Could someone move this to the holistic thread?

 

[Granite Farmer]

Here are some we have grown in the past. These pictures were taken a while ago, 2011. And the 2 at the bottom, 2013, not so many lupins.

 

[neilo]

When I started college in 1987, my very first project was an investigation into Lupins as a forage crop. They were set to be the next big thing, ideally suited to the uk climate as a source of home grown protein.

Nearly 35 years later they still haven’t made it.

 

[Crofter64]

Anyone growing or grown lupins for whole crop?
Was a few growing it about 15yr ago but seems to have fallen away.
Pic for attention

They seem to grow well on poor sandy soil. I’ve collected lots of seeds elsewhere and brought them here to our farm, but they haven’t taken.
I thought they’d help with the diversity, insect attraction and general beautification of our pastures but they don’t seem to like our heavy clay soil.

 

[Simon Chiles]

Anyone growing or grown lupins for whole crop?
Was a few growing it about 15yr ago but seems to have fallen away.
Pic for attention

I think you’d really have problems if you grew those Lupins in your forage, they’re perennial and would normally have a very high alkaloid content making them taste very bitter.
I’d also question whether the number of growers were declining, ask anyone who was considering growing lupins this spring and the biggest problem would have been the shortage of seed. I know many growers who were interested but couldn’t find a source and whilst a few seed crops didn’t make the grade I don’t think the area of seed production was down from normal. I think a fair number of livestock farmers were concerned about rising feed prices and decided to grow more of their own protein, thus creating the demand.
As for them not growing on clay soil I can also report that’s another myth, I’ve grown Lupins for more years than I can remember and many on here will vouch for the fact that the soil is definitely not light and Sandy.

 

[DrWazzock]

We grew them for whole crop silage about 5 years ago. The lupins were knobbled by delia bean fly as seedlings so we were left with a field of triticale. We decided to leave that to combine it but it got ram full of ergot so was almost unusable.
The next year we grew white lupins for combining and they produced a very good crop but combined in mid October and took some drying to put it mildly. Cattle did well on them bashed flat into big flakes through the rolling mill. I quite like the combinable sort though next time I’d have a mobile drier revved up and waiting. My radial bins were too slow at drying them and they discoloured a bit, in fact when we first switched the fans on you could see the water moving across the floor of the bin and creeping out the edges.

 

[Granite Farmer]

We grew them as a wholecrop with triticale as the pictures show. They didnt take much growing, lashings of dung if you had it and a bit of N and pre-em for weed control. Latterly we moved over the peas and barley as they seem to come ready at more or less the same time. However we grow neither currently as we are spending the money on better grass silage.

 

[DrWazzock]

We grew them as a wholecrop with triticale as the pictures show. They didnt take much growing, lashings of dung if you had it and a bit of N and pre-em for weed control. Latterly we moved over the peas and barley as they seem to come ready at more or less the same time. However we grow neither currently as we are spending the money on better grass silage.

Grass is a wonderful thing. Especially clover leys. No chemicals, no annual reseed, no major pests and diseases. Grass does quite easily what other forage crops make hard work of.

 

[Kevtherev]

Grass is a wonderful thing. Especially clover leys. No chemicals, no annual reseed, no major pests and diseases. Grass does quite easily what other forage crops make hard work of.

Yes it’s always the cheapest feed.