A New Cover Crop for Vermont Farmers: The Annual Lupin
Pease, Sean Mansfield
Pease, Sean Mansfield
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Abstract
Vermont's intense seasonality with it's short and highly variable growing season can make it increasingly difficult for farmer's to implement cover crops. Cover cropping is an important practice for improving soil health, capacity to hold nutrients and reduce run-off of fertilizers into rivers, streams, and lakes. Legumes with their nitrogen-fixing capacity and taproot structure are increasingly important as farmers look to reduce synthetic fertilizer inputs and soil compaction that both contribute to poorly sustained yields and increased environmental and fertilizer costs. The lupin species, Lupinius augustifolius or narrowleaf blue lupin, evaluated in this field trial is an annual variety that has been used extensively for green manure and cover cropping practices. It's cold-hardiness and special taproot system, excellence at mining phosphorous, and fixing nitrogen offers many potential uses in Vermont's agriculture both as a substitute for the less cold-tolerant soybean in maize systems and as a new source of highly digestible protein feed for dairy and livestock systems. Field trials were run to evaluate the potential of lupins as a cover crop here in Vermont by measuring yields and effect on nutrient status and soil properties across five varieties of narrowleaf lupin.
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Date
2020-01-01
Student Status
Undergraduate
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Poster Presentation
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Plant and Soil Science
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College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
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Biological Sciences
Engineering & Physical Sciences
Food & Environment Studies
Engineering & Physical Sciences
Food & Environment Studies