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Post by ottawagardener on Dec 21, 2012 11:25:12 GMT -5
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Post by 12540dumont on Dec 21, 2012 17:12:13 GMT -5
Ottawa, I can send you some of what I have. Save the seed of anything that survives. Plant them at the same time you put in favas.
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Post by toad on Dec 21, 2012 17:22:40 GMT -5
I suggest you write to Boguslav Kurlovich (the guy with the blog) He obviously love lupins, will know how to get the seeds, if he doesn't have the already, and he probably would like to know, that somebody out there understand the value of his research  I have a lot of good experience from contacting people like this. It can be done polite and with no demands. Hope he have seeds for you. |
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Post by ottawagardener on Dec 21, 2012 18:49:39 GMT -5
Thank you Toad. It seems that a cold hardy perennial sweet lupin could be valuable!
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Post by ottawagardener on Dec 21, 2012 18:50:08 GMT -5
dumont: How hardy are they meant to be? Thank you for the offer.
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Post by 12540dumont on Dec 21, 2012 21:09:37 GMT -5
Well, now there's a question I don't know. I contacted the folks at the Desert Legume Center in Arizona. Now he's wandered far afield hunting legumes that live in the desert. You should see what he sent me for other legumes! Anyway, between the USDA, the DLC, Raymundo in OZ, some kind soul from Sicily, what I could buy and trade for, there's about a dozen kinds of Lupini's here. Now, remember that many of the desert regions run the extreme of temperatures, dry, too wet-flash flood, and bitter cold and snow. So, last year I grew out many plots of these. My goal is to grow a grex of these eventually. I don't know how cold or hot these will grow, what I do know is that I watered them 3 or 4 times during the season and did nothing else. I actually planted them on some of the most marginal ground on the farm (near the fence line). Here they are on May 1. I planted them with the second batch of favas in March. I did plant them with endomycorrhizae. Gophers do eat them. But they didn't take too many. One word...Farinata you can use lupins to make flour just like chickpea flour. Attachments:
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Post by atash on Dec 21, 2012 21:52:36 GMT -5
Just to clarify, Ottawa is talking about "sweet" varieties of Lupinus polyphyllus, the species of which ahem (but not the sweet forms discussed in the article; our wild ones are highly toxic) happens to be native to my part of the world! It's uncommon but often re-introduced to damp meadows where it is native but was largely eradicated due to the fact that it is toxic to livestock.
The ones 12540dumont has are subtropical and probably a risk in Ottawa's climate, which is both too hot and too cold. The hardiest of them, L. albus, tolerates only light frost. It has to be sown late winter here to get a good crop. The least hardy, probably L. angustifolius, does have some forms that are extremely dwarf/early types, but that is relative.
The blog is talking about using L. polyphyllus as livestock fodder, like alfalfa. I am curious if the seeds are edible. It seems to often be an all-or-nothing proposition: edible seeds imply edible foliage. Does edible foliage imply edible seed?
That's actually a problem, as 12540dumont has mentioned vis a vis predation by field herbivores. Having a farm heavily infested with deer, rabbits, and mice, I would not dream of growing sweet lupine on it, as the foliage is edible. I want the seed, and would be perfectly happy if the foliage would ward off the deer. I have totally given up on growing any traditional green manure crop as all of them get wiped out by deer and rabbits. Instead I will replant with native lupines including L. bicolor to ward off the deer and give the soil a chance to recover. I've got a few L. polyphyllus already out there.
I have often thought L. polyphyllus would make a good crop if it could be sweetened: it's a heavy seeder. Significantly heavier than a typical Old World sweet lupine and it needs less heat than they do (they're natives of the subtropics); it grows actively from autumn until ripening its seed late summer. It's never entirely dormant. That's why it's a weed in many parts of the world. The seeds are small but produced in abundance. They have huge inflorescences, probably the largest of any Lupine.
I am curious if it actually overwinters in Finland. It is capable of blooming the first year like an annual but then I'd have difficulty believing it would be a prolific enough seeder to be actually weedy as the article implies.
Its native climates are mostly USDA z8 and z9. It probably ranges into z7 in places. I have never seen it in the mountains; seems to be a strictly lowland plant. At high elevations it is replaced by other species. I wonder if it survives in Finland by germinating in the spring too late to bloom, building up a rootstock, and then coming back from whatever survives the winter and blooming the second year.
Like most Lupines it is not long-lived; 2-3 years is probably typical though it could probably live longer. That's not a problem thanks to its prolific reseeding. It grows like a weed in my back yard. Unlike most Lupines it is highly resistant to fungal diseases. It also tolerates damper soil than most Legumes.
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Post by atash on Dec 21, 2012 22:04:33 GMT -5
12540dumont, that flour can be mixed with wheat flour at a ratio of about 1:4, to make protein-balanced pastry flour with a bonus of "white fiber" (ie, low in tannin so you barely notice it). Lupin (when it's a crop, it's "lupin", I've been told, as per some agricultural symposium where it was decided...) is the "low carb legume"; fairly low in digestible carbs. Higher in protein than most beans at something like 35% protein or so, almost as high as soy and doesn't need as hot of a climate though it does need a long growing season. Edible L. polyphyllus could push its limits further north as it needs less heat than its Mediterranean cousins. L. albus is marginal here but L. polyphyllus makes abundant fully-ripe seed.
Just a reminder: don't feed it to anyone without a warning regarding allergic potential. It is quite potent as an allergen, and the same people who are allergic to peanuts tend to be allergic to Lupin. They were giving away lupin-laced cookies one year at the Seattle Vegfest without any warning, and I am surprised there were no accidents that made headlines. Approximately 2% of the population might be affected.
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Post by MikeH on Dec 21, 2012 23:34:15 GMT -5
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Post by atash on Dec 22, 2012 2:20:32 GMT -5
Mike, the article is about "sweet" varieties of L. polyphyllus; they are missing some toxic alkaloids normally found in Lupins. They are UNnatural and the result of some sort of breeding or selection work, probably recent work done in Europe. All of the hits on GRIN seem to be of wild plants, and there are even toxicity warnings explicitly attached to some of them.
An aside--those must be largely inland forms of L. polyphyllus; ours have bigger, fatter, grape-purple flowers and huge leaves. The whole plant is pretty big as Lupines go, though not as big as the "Tree Lupine" of coastal California (naturalized here, and I have some of those too), or the Tree Lupines of Mexico which really are trees.
I agree with Toad; Boguslav Kurlovich is her best bet. If he doesn't have them he probably knows who does.
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Post by ottawagardener on Dec 22, 2012 17:52:52 GMT -5
The emails defunct and I can't locate the researcher. If anyone knows a person who knows a person, let me know pretty please.
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Post by MikeH on Dec 22, 2012 19:22:11 GMT -5
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Post by ottawagardener on Dec 23, 2012 9:33:39 GMT -5
That email doesn't exist any more.  I speak too soon, I see there's an email on the pdf. Thanks. I take it back. That email is defunct too. I'll have to actually search... |
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Post by hortusbrambonii on Dec 23, 2012 11:44:35 GMT -5
Interesting discussion. Reminds me that I have a few seeds of 'sweet blue lupin' (L. angustifolius) from a seed swap that I forgot about, but I think that one is an annual.
Anyone who knows more about it?
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Post by MikeH on Dec 23, 2012 12:50:33 GMT -5
That email doesn't exist any more. I speak too soon, I see there's an email on the pdf. Thanks. I take it back. That email is defunct too. I'll have to actually search... Did you try frederick.stoddard@helsinki.fi? |
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