Growing Food: A Guide to Food Production

• Root Rots—several kinds can cause problems.


• Virus Diseases—there are also several, including BYMV (Bean Yellow Mosaic
  Virus), which also infects beans and peas. Symptoms: a mosaic mottling, leaflets are
  distorted and the plants have a bunched, distorted growth. With L. angustifolius the
  growing point bends and blackens, and the plant dies if it is infected before
  flowering. Controlled with clean seed, early planting and aphid control.

YIELD
The yield potential of lupin grain is more than 5 MT/ha, though in many areas the
average yields are no more than 500–600 kg/ha, due mainly to excessive flower

kg/ha, the difference often being attributed to planting date.
The FAO estimated average yield world-wide in 2004 was 1.2 MT/ha, varying
from the highest national average of 2.7 MT in Chile to the lowest national average
in Syria of 480 kg/ha.
With good growing conditions, yields of 1.5–2 MT/ha should be obtained.

UTILISATION

• Seed/grain of lupins can be used for either animal or human food: for humans
  the grain is soaked in water for some time, rinsed and then boiled. The most
  commonly used species is the White (Egyptian) Lupin L. albus. Pearl Lupin is
  also grown and eaten, mainly by the rural population of the Andes. Lupins can
  also be used as a substitute for coffee or eggs, or as a source of asparagine for

fishmeal or soybean meal.

• Flour is used to fortify bread, or to substitute for soybean flour in meat
  products, noodles, pasta, bakery products, etc.


• Whole plant is used as a green manure crop, or for animal fodder, either grazed
  or for hay or silage. In Peru lupins are planted around pea and bean fields as a
  bitter hedge plant to discourage animals from grazing. In New Zealand and
  elsewhere lupins are used to enable trees to become established in very sandy
  regions, for erosion control, etc; the sand is first stabilised with Marram grass
  and other grasses, and lupins are then planted into the grass to enable the tree
  seedlings to survive.


• Stubble, the lower part of the stems left in the field after harvest, can be
  suitable for animal grazing, although whenever the plant stems of lupins are
  eaten there is always the possibility that lupinosis will develop.

LIMITATIONS

• varieties of lupin. These can be removed, but even after the grain has been
  steeped in water for some days and then cooked there is always some

drop. Yields in South Africa have been reported as varying from 290 to 1700

the production of tuberculin. For animals, the concentrate is a protein source

in cattle, sheep, pig and poultry food, or a s a substitute for groundnut cake,

281

Alkaloids are often present in the grain of older, “unimproved” and bitter

GROWING FOOD – THE FOOD PRODUCTION HANDBOOK

uncertainty as to the amount of insoluble alkaloids that remain.