Fenugreek is adding spice to the forage industry.
As a high quality, strong yielding, nitrogen fixing legume, fenugreek is best known for its roles in curry and medicinal products and advertised to American consumers as a natural breast enhancer, but soon it could be part of cattle rations in Western Canada.
Surya Acharya, a federal forage researcher from Lethbridge, has released the Tristar variety and seed increases are under way with Newfield Seeds in Nipawin, Sask., and Agricore United.
Tim McAllister, a beef cattle research agronomist, also with Agriculture Canada in Lethbridge, said fenugreek has about 90 percent of the feed value of alfalfa.
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“Once the agronomy is worked out, this may have some real potential as a dryland forage,” he said.
Saikat Basu of the University of Lethbridge is focusing his graduate work on enhancing the already productive Tristar through a mutation breeding program. It isolates germplasm that has early seed maturity and determinant growth habits, which often is a problem in legumes.
Acharya said seed maturity is an issue because fenugreek requires a 110-day window.
“We will get that down to a more easy to manage 90 days,” he said of the self-pollinating plant.
Fenugreek’s advantage over alfalfa is its ability to maintain a high leaf and stem quality throughout the growing year.
As well, McAllister said fenugreek needs to be cut only once compared to alfalfa’s two cuttings, resulting in labour and equipment savings for producers.
“It really opens up the harvest window as well.”
Fenugreek requires good seedbed preparation and excellent weed control to become established.
Agriculture Canada has applied for a minor use approval of Odyssey and Select, to which fenugreek has shown tolerance.
The annual produces about the same volume of biomass as alfalfa under similar weather, soil and nutrient conditions. Despite being highly drought tolerant, it also responds well to irrigation.
Acharya said the plant has the highly desirable ruminant feeding qualities of being non-bloating and responding well to ensiling.
“At first we were a little hesitant about its use as a dairy feed because of the (licorice) flavour of the seed and leaves,” he said.
“But we tested it on dairy cows and there was no milk tainting.”
Fenugreek also contains diosgenin, a naturally occurring hormone not found in other forage crops. The compound is extracted from fenugreek and other plants and used to manufacture hormone products such as veterinary steroids.
“Diosgenin may improve the growth rates and carcass yields of ruminants that consume the crop,” Acharya said.
“We will need more feeding trials before we can fully compare it to other forages.”
He suspects diosgenin may play a role in improving milk let-down in cows.
“Unfortunately we have no clinical studies to show the usefulness of the crop for this or a host of other medicinal properties that it is traditionally credited with.”
Besides curry, fenugreek is found in artificial butterscotch, maple syrup and vanilla and in rum flavourings and candies.
