Legume Generation Report 2

Our lupin innovation community deals with three different species: L. albus, L. angustifolius and L. mutabilis (white, narrow-leafed, and Andean lupins respectively). The plant material of these three species has different levels of germplasm development and hence, different strategies to follow and different expectations to fulfil in terms of cultivar development level. Different species might find their opportunities in different geographic regions and/or for different purposes (food, feed, technical purposes).

We believe that globally there is no real further progress in lupin breeding to be expected within the genetically very narrow genepool of sweet lupins. That is the reason why we focus on bitter lupins and their characters. There are large collections of bitter types in the genebanks which have to be described and used in pre-breeding and breeding programmes.

The Lupin Innovation Community (LUPIC) is a group of 19 partners from 15 organisations. ESKUSA is the only breeding company in this group (further breeders are welcome). We are actively seeking companies to get involved in increasing lupin cropping area. We have an ongoing breeding programme in narrow leafed lupin and a young programme in white lupin. In both species, we are dealing with alkaloid-rich forms, however, we are aiming at the feed- and food-market with sweet lupins. We work together with a food-technologist who is able to process food-grade protein from bitter grains and we try to find technical applications of lupin protein in films or glues. This is to immediately make use of the bitter forms.