Prospects for breeding yellow and narrow leaf lupins for UK conditions

Narrow leaf and yellow lupins have significant potential with respect to ruminant, poultry and aquaculture supply chains in the UK. Their protein and oil content is such that they have considerable promise as part of livestock diets together with other advantages as arable break crops. However, the current area of these lupins grown in the UK is very small with major problems of low and very variable yields, late maturity and intolerance of alkaline soils. This in turn means that there is little supply of lupins into feed formulations. We have shown that improvements in these traits is possible, after only two generations of selection, although further germplasm improvement is required before these species can play a major role in UK agriculture. Similarly, the potential for lupins to replace soya in ruminant diets has been shown in short term studies. There is a need to extend these studies and to focus on the effects of using lupins in ruminant diets over longer time periods and the use of new technologies, such as crimping to allow for earlier harvesting dates, and the use of new technologies, - to enhance palatability and inclusion rates not only for ruminants but also poultry and fish. At the same time further work on weed control is needed to develop an agronomic 'package' to make the most of narrow leafed and yellow lupins in the UK.