There’s more to lupins than meets the eye

THEY HOLD their tapering tips high in fields and ditches, on abandoned homesteads, along highways and waterways. They inspire postcards and paintings, adorn pottery and quilts.

They resemble the unaffected girl next door—low maintenance and independent in spirit—and pretty in pink, purple or white, with a green, swirly skirt.

Lupins are emblems of an Atlantic Canadian summer road trip.

And yet, they also grow wild in Israel, New Zealand and Finland. They are not native to Atlantic Canada, although they clearly like it here.

“I believe someone brought lupins here from BC as cultivated plants about 100 years ago, and they took root in the wild,” says Jason McCallum, a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Charlottetown.

Dr. McCallum knows a thing or two about lupins—he has been studying them on PEI since 2008. “We’re always looking for new plants,” he says, “plants that grow really well, but are underutilized.” He potentially sees a brave new world for lupins: they could be used as a source for pesticides, green manure, biodiesel fuel, or products with nutritional or medicinal value.

“I’m like an old-time prospector but without the donkey. I bring samples back to the lab… and run them through instruments to try to characterize what their chemical compounds are.”

One of the reasons lupins thrive and spread so well is that they are toxic to insects and fungi—so they are not thwarted accordingly—but also to animals, which means they can’t be used as a feed plant for livestock.

But, says McCallum, they could be introduced into a crop rotation to act as a fumigant for the bugs in the soil and, as a member of the bean family, would also enrich the soil with nitrogen.

“There’s one particular pest we’re worried about, called wireworm—looks like a little worm with a hard shell; lives in the soil for three or four years. It chews on potato tubers, leaving scars and hard knots, making them not marketable.” The bugs would theoretically get a toxic dose from eating the lupin roots, or a compound derived from them.

“As well, some of the poisonous alkaloid compounds could be therapeutic medically—like compounds from digitalis, or foxglove, which in low dose are used in heart treatments.”

The research to date is encouraging, he says, but there’s still a lot of work to be done to ensure there aren’t detrimental effects. At this point, his work is at an exploratory stage, rather than being an official project.

McCallum is also researching the possible uses of rose hips and sumac.

Meanwhile, there’s talk circulating on the Island that a lupin eradication plan is on the table. The plants are aggressive and invasive, outcompeting native plants and diminishing biodiversity. Any field that is undeveloped is full of them. The chemical they secrete into the soil may be harmful to beneficial bugs and plants nearby.

Turns out that the girl next door is complicated, and we have a love-hate relationship with her.

Beth Hoar, chair of the PEI Invasive Species Council, says she’s not aware of any eradication program. “What we would be targeting for eradication are plants that are newly introduced, which have very small populations. It would be extremely difficult to manage the lupin population at this point. Once something is so established it would take a huge amount of money and human resources to eradicate it.

“But they do have a negative impact on their habitat,” she says. “Their aggressive growth habit outcompetes our native plants; it reduces the quality of the habitat and the food sources for wildlife.”

Jackie Waddell, executive director of the Island Nature Trust, agrees that lupins are so widespread, it would be virtually impossible to eradicate them—not to mention very unpopular, she adds.

“They are an invasive species, but iconic of PEI.”