Plant · P-096

Narrowleaf Lupine

Lupinus angustifolius

Narrowleaf Lupine is a nitrogen-fixing annual grain legume whose seed rivals soybean for protein, cooked as a vegetable or fed to livestock at rates comparable to soybean meal. It needs a dedicated inoculant on ground that has never grown it before, and does best on mildly acid, well-drained sandy or loamy soil kept consistently moist - it has little tolerance for alkaline, calcareous or dry ground. Modern sweet cultivars carry almost none of the bitter alkaloids older types need soaked out, and the plant also frees up soil phosphorus for whatever grows near it.