Contributing Authors: Jan Kiers, Richard Paalman, Wendy Schalke. All from Delphy.
Delphy coordinates the Dutch Living Lab within VALERECO, focusing on the crops lupin and faba bean. Together with all stakeholders, our partners investigate how these legumes can be successfully integrated into existing cropping systems. The emphasis is on practical applicability, yield reliability, and making the ecosystem services provided by these crops visible.
In this Living Lab, Delphy brings together knowledge from practice and research. By experimenting, monitoring, and actively sharing knowledge, the team aims to make the cultivation of lupin and faba bean more attractive to a broader group of farmers in the Netherlands.
Delphy and the Living Lab
The Delphy team consists of project manager Jan Kiers, Richard Paalman who contributes his cultivation expertise, and Wendy Schalke who is responsible for all communication activities. For the Living Lab, Delphy has partnered with Lekker Lupine. Lekker Lupine is a Dutch platform committed to the reintroduction of lupin beans to Dutch fields and plates. They promote consumption and organise the cultivation and marketing of organic and nature-inclusive lupin beans in the Netherlands. The platform collaborates with farmers, producers, chefs, and consumers to boost the cultivation and consumption of lupin. Lekker Lupine is an initiative by Marieke Laméris and farmer André Jurrius. For faba beans, connections will be sought with “Eiwitboeren van Nederland”, which Lekker Lupine is also part of.
An important component of the Living Lab is the three-year field trial. This will be carried out during the 2025, 2026, and 2027 seasons at Ekoboerderij De Lingehof in Randwijk, the arable farm of André Jurrius. His employee Linda Calciolari plays an important role in establishing and maintaining the field trial. Data collection from the field trial will be carried out by Delphy.
The field trial will test the following over the three years:
- Two lupin varieties
- Two faba bean varieties
- A control/rest crop: spring wheat. Partly this is in rotation with the legumes, but it also includes a three-year monoculture of spring wheat.
The lupin and faba bean plots will have three different setups:
- Monoculture
- Mixed cultivation with oats
- Monoculture with compost tea
The cultivation will be conducted organically. The main measurements will focus on: yield, drought resistance, diseases and pests, and weed pressure.
Current status and upcoming activities
At the end of March, the field trial was sown, and by the end of April, the first measurements were conducted by the Delphy team. They now have a good picture, especially of emergence and the number of leaves per plant. At the time of counting, weed pressure was still very low. With mechanical weeding, the plot can still be kept well weed-free.
The farmer group has also sown all spring lupins, and since the crops are organic, the farmers are now busy with weed control. Farmers actively collaborate with Delphy team through digital channels for knowledge exchange. Under favorable growing conditions, the 2025 growing season has at least started well. In contrast to the extremely wet spring of 2024, spring 2025 is now threatening to be dry; a period of rain would be welcome, and otherwise irrigation will be necessary.
On June 20, an important event is scheduled: the official opening of the Lekker Lupine Inspiration House. This will take place in the presence of a broad community, including buyers, processors, chefs, farmers, retailers, researchers, and policymakers. In addition, farmers and interested citizens are also invited. There will be guided tours of the trial fields of the EU funded projects VALERECO and OMEGA, as well as tasting and discovery sessions with lupin products.
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