«God said: Let the earth produce vegetation, seed-bearing plants,

trees bearing fruit with seed, each according to its kind, upon the

earth.

And so it was.

The earth produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to

their kind and trees producing fruit which has seed, according to

their kind.

God saw that it was good.»

(Bible, Genesis 1:11,12)

<<< PREFACE >>>

The present work is a sequel and the first English publication among the unique series of volumes “Flora of cultivated plants” started by N.I. Vavilov. Justifying the issuing of volumes of this serial on separate crops, he specified this publication as an encyclopedia on cultivated plants, major guidebook and directory for every biologist, plant breeder and plant grower. By now, the N.I.Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry (St. Petersburg, Russia) has issued several dozens of volumes of this serial dedicated to main agricultural crops with a bias towards national specificity of Russia and in Russian. The volume devoted to long-term study of the collection of some annual grain legumes was for the first time published in 1937. However, due to a number of circumstances lupin was not included in this volume. The present book embraces the results of more than sixty years of monographic research on lupin genetic resources. Research materials are represented by the lupin collection of the N.I. Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry (VIR) storing now more than 2500 accessions of different lupin species collected by numerous expeditions over the globe. Theoretical basis for our research activities were N.I. Vavilov’s works on plant genetic resources. We have used the special methodology of the Vavilov Institute developed with regard to lupin (Kurlovich at al., 1990b).

Many years of observing plants sown in various regions have enabled us to find out new regularities in the variability of characters depending on genetic features of the species and accessions, and also on ecological and agronomic conditions of their growth. We have also disclosed new characters and their combinations, both taxonomically significant and genetically determined. This factor as well as generalization of the data obtained by other researchers (Zhukovsky, 1929; Kazimierski and Novacki, 1961; Gladstones, 1974; Maissurjan and Atabiekova, 1974; Kazimierski and Kazimierska, 1975) made it possible to introduce essential corrections in the intra-specific taxonomic and eco-geographic classifications of lupins. These classifications have been developed on the basis of Vavilov’s concepts (the doctrine about the species as a system, the law of homological series in hereditary variation, differential systematic and geographical method of crop studies, etc.).

The sites for studying lupin accessions were chosen with regard to the duration of vegetation periods, and soil and climate conditions required obtaining vigorous seed of each sample. The collection of white lupin was reproduced in the non-black-soil zone of the Ukraine (Kiev Province); yellow lupin in the forest-steppe zone of the Ukraine (Zhitomir Province) and on non-black soils in the Ukraine (near Kiev); narrow-leafed lupin in the non-black-soil region of Russia (Moscow Province) and in the black-soil zone of Russia (Tambov Province); multifoliate or Washington lupin near Pushkin (Leningrad Province, 20 km away from St.Petersburg); Pearl lupin (L. mutabilis Sweet.) and other species from America in the black-soil zone of Russia (Tambov Province). Besides, with the purpose of revealing the range of variability for specific characters and substances, the same accessions were also reproduced in other places. In particular, for a significant part of accessions replication were performed at the former Sukhumi Experimental Station of the Vavilov Institute (in Abkhazia) in the conditions of humid subtropics, at the former Central Asian Branch of VIR (near Tashkent, Uzbekistan) in the conditions of dry climate, in the black-soil zone of the Ukraine (Poltava Province), in the conditions of non-black-soil zone of Russia near the town of Pushkin (Leningrad Province, 20 km from St.Petersburg), and in Bryansk Province (at the All-Russian Institute of Lupin and Novozybkov Branch of the All-Russian Institute of Fertilizers and Agricultural Soil Science). Field investigations have been supplemented by herbarium studies and laboratory analyses. The purpose of this research is to accomplish comprehensive study of the global botanical and varietal diversity of different species in order to gain deeper insight into the problems of lupin geography, evolution and classification, and also to find out regularities in the variability of major valuable morphological and biological properties in various eco-geographic conditions of its cultivation.

The existing world-wide shortage of protein is generating special attention to lupin. In Russia, where climatic resources for cultivation of soybean are limited, lupin in the long run can play the role that soybean has gained in the U.S., i.e. it may become a highly efficient source of vegetative protein. Special interest in lupin is stirred up by high content of protein in its seed (up to 50%), as well as of oil (from 5 up to 20%) whose quality is close to that of olive, and by the absence of digestion inhibitors and other anti-nutritional substances. Lupin seed have been used since ancient times as human food and animal feed (Gross, 1988; Lopez-Bellido and Fuentes, 1986; Beirao da Costa, 1994). Green material of low-alkaloid (sweet) varieties is also excellent forage.

Due to their symbiosis with nodule bacteria lupins are capable to accumulate in soil up to 200 kg of nitrogen per hectare, thus being perfect symbiotic plants. Utilizing lupin as green manure helps to protect environments from pollution, go without expensive fertilizers, and obtain ecologically clean products (Lopez-Bellido and Fuentes, 1986; Lopez-Bellido, 1994).

It should be marked that the progress achieved by man in domestication of lupins is rather modest. Of several hundred lupin species existing in a nature, only three annual species and one perennial (Lupinus polyphyllus Lindl.) are used in Russian agriculture for forage production. However, many wild species of lupin are promising for agricultural use. Besides, further efforts are needed to solve the problems of plant resistance to diseases and pests, higher adaptability to unfavorable environmental factors, and breeding of forms with high technological properties for agricultural production. With these goals in view, special significance is acquired by scientifically justified selection of breeding sources, diversity of such materials, and the degree of comprehensiveness in studying them.

In the outcome of long-term studies of the lupin collection stored at the N.I. Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry, it became possible to accumulate a great deal of original data on this crop’s specific and varietal structure, its geography, ecology, systematization, genetics, biochemistry, immunology, and selection methods. All these issues are dealt with in the present book. It is based on our own researches, as well as on the research data received by prominent scientists, such as P.M. Zhukovsky, E.I. Sinskaya, B.M. Libkind, V.S. Fedotov, N.I. Sharapov, N.N. Ivanov, M.I. Smirnova, V.N. Dyubin and other experts who worked in the experimental network of the Vavilov Institute in different times, N.A. Maissurjan and A.I. Atabiekova who conducted fundamental research on lupin in Moscow Agricultural Academy. The national (Russian) and world literature on lupin has also been generalized. Russian references are made here in the original (Cyrillic) alphabet. In our opinion, this may facilitate their search and additional study.

Our work essentially supplements the book published in 1998 by the scientists of Australia «Lupins as crop plants» (edited by J.S. Gladstones, C. Atkins and J. Hambling, 1998). In their book, the materials dedicated to studying and cultivation of lupin in Australia and many other countries were summarized. However, information about lupin growing in the ex-USSR countries was provided there on a limited scale, probably due to certain difficulties in translating Russian literature. It should also be mentioned here that the world community on the whole has very limited access to scientific information on lupin cultivation in the former Soviet Union. The present work is supposed to fill this gap, so that the data of the researches conducted by Russian scientists could be available to the world’s scientific community. We attempted to throw light on the global achievements in studying lupin by exposing the main developments of Russian, Polish, Byelorussian and Ukrainian scientists in this sphere. The contributors of this book are the liding scientists from Russia, Poland and Finland.

Originally, the present work had been written in Russian, but later was translated into English. The authors’ goal was to make scientific achievements of Russian scientists known to wider scientific circles of the world. Unfortunately, the English version of the text may contain discrepancies of translation and stylistic faults. The editor is making an apology for this, as it is actually his first attempt to present in English the existing voluminous materials about lupin in Russia. The large thank to Mr. A.G. Krylov for the help and councils while translating this book.

I would like to express my gratitude and compliments to all scientists of N.I. Vavilov Institute, continuing begun by N.I. Vavilov the work with Plant Genetic Resources. We could to generalize this work only due to close cooperation and dialogue with many of them. The special gratitude is expressed to Profs. N.I. Korsakov, M. G. Agaev, K.Z. Budin, N.M. Chekalin, G.G. Davidjan, B.N. Malinovsky, and V.D. Kobyliansky, to Drs. A.V. Khotyanovich, N.N. Nazarova, S.I. Pilipenko, Rybnikova, O.N. Korovina, T.V. Buravtseva, and F.T. Tarba.

We thank to the Government and to the People of Finland for warm reception and creation of favorable conditions for the work with this book.

This work is issued and is published due to financial support of Finnish company 0Y International North Express (Raimo Heinänen and Päivi Heinänen).

Boguslav S. Kurlovich

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