Other Crops
Lupines
Average Annual Production* = 21,2k tons
* 3-year average from 2021/2022 until 2023/2024
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In 2020, Grain SA established a Lupine and Other Crops Working Group.
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Grain SA established a Breeding & Technology levy for lupines to incentivise seed companies to bring new cultivars to the SA market.
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One new variety has since been introduced and multiplied locally.
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Market information establishment for lupines in SA.
Transparent Market Information
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Calculation and publication of derived producer prices.
Integrated Crop-Livestock Production Systems
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Pasture and cover crops benefit producers by increasing farm profitability and environmental sustainability.
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CA-based crop-pastures rotations improve physical, chemical, hydrological, and biological soil properties.
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Each pasture ley and cover crops have special purpose:
• Legumes – used to improve soil nitrogen levels.
• Grass – used to increase soil organic matter, recycle excess nutrients, reduce soil compaction.
• Brassica – loosen soil, recycle nutrients, and supress weeds
Other Crops for the Swartland & Overberg
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Identifying other crops for the Western Cape winter grain region will assist producers to survive economically by managing successive dry seasons, low yields, and high costs.
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Focussing on broadleaf crops and legume crops that bind nitrogen are essential in a successful wheat crop rotation system.
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Heavily dependent on crops from Australia due to corresponding climate and canola cultivars, lupines, peas, oats, medics, and clovers are imported annually and successfully cultivated locally.
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Legumes (pulses) to consider as other crops in the Western Cape include: Broadbeans (Vicia faba minor), Lupines, Peas (Pisum sativum L.), Lentils (Lens culinaris), Chickpeas (Cicer arietinum), Coriander & linseed.
Typical Summer & Winter Crop Mixture
FOCUS AREA
Pasture Ley & Cover Crops for a Spesific Purpose
Quick forage that can be grazed
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Oats, forage radishes, turnips, triticale and stooling rye, and annual ryegrass, teff for dry lands, babala, forage sorghum and barley.
Start up or enhance no-till
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Forage radish, turnips, babala and forage sorghum. Babala and forage sorghum can result in very hight residue amounts for soil cover.
Prevention of soil erosion
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Grasses have fibrous root systems to bind soil, and the best grass cover crops include babala, forage sorghum, cereal rye, annual ryegrass, oats, wheat and barley. Other cover crops include lablab, buckwheat (with a shallow fibrous root system), cowpea and winter pea.
Pasture ley crops for soil carbon build-up (to increase c:n ratio)
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Summer annuals: Babala and forage sorghum
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Winter annuals: Cereal rye, annual ryegrass, triticale, oats, wheat & barley.
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Perennials: Sub-tropical grasses, for example Rhodes grass, Smuts finger grass, weeping love grass, Guinea grass, blue buffalo grass and tall fescue.
Pasture ley crops for soil nitrogen increase (to decrease c:n ratio)
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Summer annuals: Cowpea, soybeans, mung beans, dolichos lablab, velvet bean, jack bean and sun hemp.
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Winter annuals: Winter pea, red clover, sweet clover, vetch, serradella and lupines.
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Perennials: Lucerne, poor man's lucerne and fine stem stylo.
Requires no herbicide to kill
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Oats, cowpea, winter pea, forage radish and turnips.
Reduction in compaction (deep rooted)
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Babala, forage sorghum, annual ryegrass, forage radish, sweet clover, cereal rye, oats and dolichos lablab.
Recycle excess nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus)
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Forage and tillage radish, turnips, annual ryegrass, cereal rye, oats, wheat, babala, forage sorghum, sweet clover, winter pea, cowpea, red clover and vetch species.
Natural herbicides/allelopathic effects for weed suppression
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Cereal rye, forage radish, oats, barley, babala and forage sorghum. Annual ryegrass, cereal rye, and sorghum may be used for controlling soybean cyst nematodes.
Attract beneficial insects
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Buckwheat, sweet clover, red clover and other selected clover and vetch species, sun hemp, sunflower, dolichos lablab and sorghum.
Tolerate wet soils
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White clover, red clover, other selected clover species, annual ryegrass, cereal rye, wheat and oats.
Tolerate heat and drought
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Dolichos lablab, cowpea, vetch species, mung beans, sweet clover, sorghum, babala, barley and teff.
Cold tolerant
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Stooling rye, oats, wheat, triticale, winter pea and selected clover species.