Welcome!

Do you want to order lucerne tree seeds or trees? Please take a few moments to browse through our website as we have very comprehensive information, detailed step-by-step instructions, and photos to help inform you in all aspects of lucerne tree farming.

Please note ~

• We courier seeds and trees to your door anywhere in South Africa.
• We are unable to courier trees internationally due to international biosecurity regulations.
• Currently our lucerne tree stocks are sold out. We are growing new seedlings which will be ready for transport in Spring. Reserve your trees in our nursery with a 50% deposit.

To order lucerne tree seeds or trees, please fill in the contact form on our Orders page and we will email you all the details.

Mountain-high lucerne tree cuttings

We regularly prune our lucerne trees and feed the cut branches as-is to our sheep and cattle. It is a quick and easy method of feeding green feed to our livestock while also providing our trees with the vital pruning they need to stimulate more new growth and manage their height.

We also dry out cut lucerne tree branches which provides a year-round stock of nutritious feed. Here is a photo of the cuttings taken from a camp of lucerne trees.

We lay the cut branches on a black tarpaulin and leave for about 3 days to dry out. Then, with a few whacks of each branch, the dried leaves easily fall off which we then store in feed bags. The dried twigs and empty branches provide excellent kindling or fire-starters.

Fresh or dried, lucerne tree cuttings provide very nutritious feed year-round, making them one of the best investments of permanent grazing and feed on our farm.

Order your lucerne trees and seeds now.

Summer Tree Stock Sold Out

We have had an incredible lucerne tree summer and we have just delivered some of the last of our large lucerne trees. Our summer tree stock is now sold out.

We have already started preparing our tree stock for spring. We currently have a limited number of saplings available and we will be germinating and potting out seedlings during autumn and winter to have stock ready by spring.

Please place you order for trees sooner rather than later, and we will reserve your little trees in our nursery until they are strong enough to be transported. We have successfully couriered our lucerne trees to clients all across South Africa.

Remember that young lucerne trees are very delicious and are vulnerable to every kind of critter. Snails and birds devour seedlings, and hares, tortoises, buck, and even porcupines eat little saplings. Small lucerne tree seedlings and saplings should be kept in a sheltered and protected area to grow to 40cm tall before being planted out in the land. And even once planted, they need to be protected for at least 18-months before they can be grazed.

Happy farming!

Feeding cattle cut lucerne tree branches

In this YouTube video, Myles demonstrates how he feeds his black Angus cattle cut lucerne tree branches and cut leucaena branches as part of the green feed along with grass bales during the hot summer months when the intense summer heat quickly dries out the veld grasses and veld plants.

This continuous supply of fresh green feed, packed with protein and sugars, along with grass bales provides our livestock with good nutritional feed throughout the seasons.

Our well-established camps of lucerne trees provide abundant feed year-round. Cutting the branches stimulate the lucerne trees to bounce back as they love to be pruned.

Myles also mentions another excellent fodder tree called leucaena leucocephala, also a legume fodder tree, which he has growing on the farm.

Click over to our Order page to order your lucerne trees and seeds.

Cutting Green Feed – New Video

Myles discusses and demonstrates how he cuts lucerne trees for fresh green feed for his sheep and cattle.

Lucerne trees thrive when pruned, and bounce back with vigorous new growth within weeks.

Lucerne trees are a lifesaver at this time of the year in the Klein Karoo. The intense summer heat quickly dries out the grasses and veld plants, and so having a continuous supply of fresh green feed to add to dried grass bales, provides the livestock with good nutritional feed throughout the seasons.

Myles mentions another excellent fodder tree called leucaena leucocephala, also a legume fodder tree, which he has growing on the farm.

The lucerne trees in this video are one of many camps of well-established lucerne trees, pruned to a height of about 1.5m, but they will grow to about 6m if left unpruned. Myles also brings livestock into this camp for controlled grazing, where the animals feed directly off the trees like a living haystack as part of his grazing management.

You can find out everything to know about farming with lucerne trees and place your order on our website ~Lucerne Tree Farm.

Lucerne Trees Ready to Plant in stock

It is February and we still have lots of lucerne trees in stock. They have grown in their bags well past 40cm tall, some nearing 1m tall, and they need to get out into the land within the next few weeks. 

These trees will quickly become established and should be well on their way before the colder winter weather comes from end of May onwards. 

Please pop over to our Orders page to order yours now. We can courier them to your door all across South Africa.

Pruning lucerne trees for cattle & sheep feed

In this Lucerne Tree Farm YouTube video, Myles describes how he prunes his mature lucerne trees for cattle and sheep feed.

Pruning lucerne trees for cattle and sheep feed

Most of these trees are about 6 years old and have been planted along fence lines and in rows in camps. Lucerne trees are exceptionally fast-growing, reaching 6m height in 4 to 6 years. Lucerne trees are highly nutritious, with similar nutrient values to normal alfalfa ground lucerne, but without the danger of bloat. You can read about lucerne trees on our website ~ Lucerne Tree Information

In this video you will see how much food one lucerne tree yields after just 15 minutes of aggressive pruning. Pruning always stimulates the lucerne tree to produce new, vigorous growth, develop thick, sturdy branches and trunk, as well as to maintain the trees shape. If farmers wish to have their animals graze directly off the lucerne trees, then they will need to prune their trees to 1.5m height regularly. These pruned branches are placed in a cattle feed “ring” where the cattle or sheep strip off all the leaves, leaving bare branches. (These dried branches make exceptional fire kindling.)

One mature lucerne tree yields about 50kg of fresh cuttings on each pruning which will feed about 8 cattle in a day. These pruned trees take between 3 to 5 months to recover their full growth, especially if irrigated or during the rain season, ready to be pruned again. Because lucerne trees are evergreen, they provide fresh, nutritious feed year-round. All our information on pruning is here ~ Prune Trees

Myles also mentions another fodder tree called Leucaena. This is also a legume tree with rather thin, spindly stems which can be browsed right down to the ground and will sprout out numerous branches again and again.

We supply hand-picked lucerne tree seeds in packs of 100’s or 1000’s shipped around the world (where international postal shipping Covid restrictions have reopened). We also courier young lucerne trees either in potting bags or in tube-packs (depending on our stocks available) to South African clients. Please pop over to our Orders page to fill in the contact form to place your order.

Happy Farming!

Tube-packed trees OUT OF STOCK

Update: WE NO LONGER SELL TREES IN TUBE-PACKS. In Spring, we packed thousands of tube-pack trees ready to courier to clients within the next few months, but summer has come and our remaining tube-packed trees have outgrown their small tube-packs. We, therefore, are out of stock of tube-packed trees. We do have large supplies of thriving young lucerne trees in individual 1-litre potting bags in stock.

Remember that lucerne trees have a very vigorous root system and want to grow deep down into the soil. This fast root growth means that lucerne trees should not remain in potting bags for more than a few months. We recommend that you shelter your young sapling until it reaches 40cm and then plant them in your lands. This growth takes about 4 months.

Please fill in the contact form on our Orders page to order your your trees.

New Seeds 2022

We find ourselves in-between seasons with our lucerne tree seed stocks. 

Currently, our previous seed harvests from 2020 / 2021 have hardened due to natural ageing in the hot, dry summer season, and our germination results are no longer as high as we would like them to be.  In our latest trials, we have had lower germination rates and the process has taken longer than normal.

This month, January 2022, we harvested our lucerne tree seeds. We hand-picked, sifted, and packaged our newest lucerne tree seeds, but these seeds will not germinate as readily at this stage as the seeds are too fresh and need a few months to mature.  Some of the seed germ (the little beige tips where the roots and leaves emerge) is still a little green.

In nature, around this time of year, when the seed pods on the tree turn brown and dry out, the pods twist, split and pop open and the lucerne tree seeds fall out of their pods onto the ground around the mother tree. Here, these seeds lie in the soil during the hot, dry summer months. Remember that lucerne trees are native to the Canary Islands which enjoys a Mediterranean climate with hot, dry summers and cold, rainy winters. After about 5 months of exposure to the elements, and when the winter rains begin to fall, these fallen seeds start to germinate.  Just a quick note – although these volunteer seeds may come up, most do not make it to maturity as insects and animals graze and eat them before they grow into trees.

When you receive your latest lucerne tree seeds from us, we recommend that you hold these 2022 seeds in a cool, dry, dark place until May 2022 and only then begin your germination process as described. The seeds will be fine kept in their little zip-bag, and then placed in a labelled paper bag, stored indoors, in a cool, dry cupboard.

In the meantime, for clients who still have some of our older seed stock, we recommend that you still germinate your seeds, but wait a little longer for those seeds to come up.

Our sincere wish is that our clients enjoy every success in their lucerne tree farming, so please contact us on our Orders page with any questions, quotes or orders, and we will do our best to assist you.

Happy Farming!

Spring saplings growing strong

Our spring lucerne tree seedlings in their bags are growing beautifully as the spring temperatures warm.

We currently have stocks of lucerne trees in bags that are between 15cm – 30 cm tall and they will be ready to plant out once they reach about 40cm tall in a month or so’s time. We also have stocks of trees in tube-packs for lighter courier costs.

You can see how tender and spindly these little saplings are. If you plant your trees when they are too small and young, they will be eaten as a quick little snack by any passing browser. Shelter your trees to grow to size and only plant them when they are taller and stronger. Protect your young trees from any animals for at least their first 18-months with good fencing and/or shade cloth. Please read all about how to plant your trees and what to put into the holes here – Planting Trees.

Also, you can nip the growth tips off these saplings to stimulate side-branching and prolific leaf development. Wait about 2 weeks after planting them out to “take” and settle, and then snip off the tips of each sapling. You’ll be amazed at how quickly they will flourish with new leaves and branches.

Order your trees now while stocks last. Unfortunately we may not export trees across international borders, but you can order seeds instead.

Happy Farming!