Some facts about growing sweet lupine's
Sweet lupine are usually grown on loamy sand or sandy loam, they wont grow very good in poorly drained soils. A soil with pH
Lupines should never follow any legume or gras in the crop rotation.
The strong rooting system up to 1.5 m deep is very good if the soil is not to strong compacted. Also for this reason besides the fact that it uses water very efficient lupine’s do not need a lot of water during the growing season.
Because the germination of lupine is epigeal they should not be sown to deep.
Lupine needs cooler temperatures in the early stages so they are sown in a timeframe beginning of March to beginning of April at a depth of 2 to 4 cm in 15 - 30 cm rows.
The target plant density is about 90 - 100 Plants per square meter therefore the aim during seeding should be 100 Plants per square meter.
The thousand kernel weight differs a lot for lupine’s and it is in the range of
50-200 g for 1000 seeds.
If a average seedweight of 0.1 g is used than the farmer should seed about 100 kg/ha.
If seeded early the plants will be shorter with less side shoots therefore the crop will ripen earlier and more equal.
Many varieties are susceptible against the widespread anthracnose disease which is often transmitted by infected seeds.
After a growing period of 120 to 130 days lupine’s will be ready for harvest.
If the crop does not ripen in time a pre harvest herbicide application can be decided at the stage where 50% of the main pods are brown.
Harvest is possible at 15 - 20 % moisture but storage should be done at about 14 %. The yield will differ with the kernel weight but should be around 2 to 3 t/h.
