Lupins in sustainable agriculture (LISA)
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Research/Industrial partners: IBERS (Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University; formerly IGER), The University of Newcastle, PGRO, TAG, Germinal Holdings, BPEX, DairyCo, ABNA and Kelvin Cave Ltd.
Sponsors: This project is being funded under the Defra LINK Sustainable Arable programme
Project duration: 2004 - 2009
LISA is a five year project addressing the use of spring sown yellow and narrow leaf (blue) lupins in UK agriculture. Lupins potentially offer a home-grown high protein feed source comparable to Soya. The project is examining the crop in both conventional and organic production regimes as well as undertaking a range or both ruminant and non-ruminant feed studies. The EU currently imports around 40m tonnes of Soya products each year but this research suggests that lupins could provide a similar high protein grain of known provenance.
The LISA remit covers a wide range of areas including development work to enable plant breeding, agronomic research and an examination of the utilisation of lupins within livestock systems. Genetic improvement work has identified a range of desirable crop traits; this research will be used to enable the development of DNA markers that can ultimately make the selection of improved genotypes faster and more precise. Agronomic development has looked to improve understanding of the crop and to further develop the agronomic package available to support lupin production in both conventional and organic systems; for example specific work has addressed the issues of weed control and pH tolerance.
To assess their potential for inclusion in pig diets, two different varieties of lupin (Wodjil, a yellow lupin, and Prima, a narrow leaf lupin) were compared with hiprosoya in a metabolism study with 49 growing pigs of 40 kg initial live weight. The apparent digestibility of dry matter, nitrogen and phosphorus were measured, together with urinary excretion. The lupin varieties were included as 10 or 20% supplements to a barley based diet. The samples used in this experiment showed a crude protein content of 35% (Wodjil) and 28% (Prima).
Results indicated that dry matter and nitrogen digestibility were poorer for both lupin varieties than for soya (Wodjil: 83-84% of soya and Prima: 90-91% of soya). These values indicate only the apparent digestibility, which may overestimate true amino acid contribution because of the activity of other factors affecting utilisation. The other factor, which will affect the use of lupins in pig feeding, is their effect on feed intake. There are reports that inclusion of lupins may make diets less palatable and it was noted that feed refusals were greater with diets containing lupins, this suggests that careful diet introduction would be necessary.
Further information on this research including pig feeding trials and agronomy advice can be found on the project website: www.lupins.ibers.aber.ac.uk/.