Alfalfa in Urdu: لوسن (lusan), رجکا (rijka), بارہ ماسی (baramasi) — names, sowing and seed

What is alfalfa called in Urdu? Alfalfa meaning in Urdu explained

Alfalfa is the American and Spanish-derived name for the fodder legume Medicago sativa; in British English and in most agricultural writing in Pakistan the same plant is lucerne. In Urdu it is لوسن, written in Roman Urdu as lusan, lucen or losan and pronounced close to "loo-sun". Older texts and some extension leaflets spell it لوسرن (lusern), a direct borrowing from "lucerne". Both spellings mean the same crop: if a seed bag, a university bulletin or a WhatsApp message says لوسن or لوسرن, it means alfalfa.

So "alfalfa meaning in Urdu" is simply this: الفالفا = لوسن = لوسرن, a deep-rooted perennial fodder (چارہ) legume with purple flowers, trifoliate leaves and the highest crude protein of any common green fodder grown in Pakistan — typically 22 to 24 percent when cut at the right stage. The word "alfalfa" came into English from Spanish, which took it from the Arabic al-fisfisa. The Arabic-speaking Gulf, where many Pakistani workers live, calls the crop برسيم حجازي (barseem hijazi) — a frequent source of confusion, because in Pakistan برسیم means Egyptian clover, a completely different winter fodder. We come back to that below.

Why does the name matter? Because most agronomy published online about alfalfa is written in English for North American and Australian conditions, while the farmer in Khanewal, Sahiwal or Sanghar thinks in Urdu, Punjabi or Sindhi. This page is the bridge: the names in all three languages, the sowing calendar for Pakistan, the seed rate per acre, and how to buy clean لوسن کے بیج (lucerne seed) direct from the company that grows and cleans it. For the world list, see alfalfa names in different languages.

Alfalfa in Punjabi and Sindhi: rijka (رجکا), baramasi (بارہ ماسی) and sada bahar

Pakistan's farming languages each have their own everyday word for lucerne, and a buyer searching "alfalfa in Punjabi" or "rijka seed" is often the same person who searched "alfalfa in Urdu" an hour earlier. The words you will hear:

• لوسن (lusan) — the standard word across Punjab and in Urdu-medium agriculture; written and pronounced the same in Punjabi Shahmukhi.
• رجکا (rijka / rajka) — the traditional name in Sindh and in the southern Punjab districts along the Sindh border (Rahim Yar Khan, Bahawalpur, Rajanpur, into Ghotki and Sukkur); in Sindhi also رجڪو. Many older farmers in Sindh never say لوسن at all. "Rijka seed" and "rajka beej" are the same product as لوسن کا بیج.
• بارہ ماسی (baramasi, baramashi) — literally "of twelve months": a perennial crop that stays green all year. بارہ ماسی لوسن is the common phrase for perennial lucerne as opposed to seasonal fodders such as berseem or sorghum; people also search "baramashi alfalfa" in Roman script.
• سدا بہار (sada bahar) — "ever-green", used the same way, especially on seed bags and in Punjab extension material. Kohenoor's own Urdu pages say سدا بہار لوسرن.
• Pashto and Balochi areas — in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan the crop is often سپستہ (spasta), shared with Persian and Dari; spellings vary from valley to valley, and "lucern" borrowed from English is heard in Peshawar and Quetta markets.

None of these names points to a different plant. Whether a farmer asks for لوسن, رجکا, بارہ ماسی, سدا بہار or spasta, he is asking for Medicago sativa — the only real differences are between varieties (how dormant, how heat- or salt-tolerant) and between clean seed and dirty seed. The page on لوسرن (الفالفا) بیج covers the Kohenoor variety in Urdu; the sections below do the same in English with the Urdu and Punjabi terms alongside, for readers more comfortable in English — including the many Pakistanis in the United Kingdom and the Gulf who manage family land back home by phone.

Glossary: lucerne farming terms in English, Urdu and Punjabi (Shahmukhi)

When a son in Manchester or Dubai talks to a father or a munshi on the farm, the conversation jumps between English and the village language. This table puts the lucerne vocabulary side by side so that a WhatsApp conversation about seed, sowing and cuttings is understood at both ends. Punjabi is written in Shahmukhi as spoken in central and southern Punjab; Sindhi and Saraiki speakers will recognise most of the same words.

A note on the Gulf: in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Oman the Arabic seed market says برسيم حجازي ("Hijazi") for alfalfa and "Masri" (Egyptian) for berseem clover. A Pakistani on a farm in Al Kharj or Al Ain and a brother farming in Vehari therefore use the word برسیم for two different crops. When in doubt, say "lucerne" or send a leaf photo: lucerne has narrow oval leaflets and purple flowers; berseem has rounder, softer leaflets and white flower heads.

Lucerne (لوسن) vs berseem (برسیم) vs shaftal (شفتل): which fodder is which

The most common mistake made by first-time buyers — and by people translating between Urdu and Arabic — is to confuse lucerne with berseem. Both are legumes cut green for buffaloes and cows, both are sown in the Rabi season from October, but they behave completely differently in the field, and a dairy farm (ڈیری فارم) in Punjab or Sindh usually needs both, on separate plots, to keep green fodder coming all year.

In practice a Pakistani dairy farmer uses berseem (Kohenoor's Safa berseem, an early-maturing, broad-leaf, dodder-free clover) for heavy winter tonnage from December to April, and keeps a permanent plot of بارہ ماسی لوسن to carry the animals through the two fodder gaps: April to June, when berseem is gone and sorghum and maize are not ready, and October to November, when summer fodders are finished and berseem has only just been sown. Shaftal is a useful third winter crop on heavier land and in cooler districts. The Urdu pages for برسیم بیج and the Pakistan forage range explain the seasonal programme; the English overview is on forage seeds for dairy farms.

When to sow lucerne in Pakistan: the Rabi window (October–November) and the spring window (February–March)

Lucerne is a Rabi-sown crop in Pakistan. The main window across the Indus plains is mid-October to the end of November — after cotton in southern Punjab and Sindh, after rice in central Punjab, and as soon as the kharif fodder plot is cleared. The soil is still warm for fast germination, nights are cooling so seedlings are not scorched, and the crop is established before the December–January cold. A second, smaller window opens in February and the first half of March, after frost but before the April heat; a spring-sown crop must be well rooted before the first hot wind, so earlier is safer. Dates shift a week or two with altitude and latitude; the agriculture extension office (محکمہ زراعت) in your tehsil will confirm the local recommendation.

• Southern Punjab (Khanewal, Multan, Vehari, Lodhran, Bahawalpur, Rahim Yar Khan). Mid-October to late November after cotton; the warm autumn gives a first cutting typically 50–60 days after sowing. February sowing also works. See Khanewal and Multan.
• Central Punjab (Faisalabad, Sahiwal, Okara, Toba Tek Singh, Jhang, Sargodha). October to mid-November after rice or maize; slightly earlier is better because winters are colder. Spring sowing by early March.
• Sindh (Hyderabad, Tando Allahyar, Mirpur Khas, Sanghar, Nawabshah, Sukkur). The long warm autumn allows sowing from mid-October through December; رجکا is a traditional crop here and non-dormant varieties are the right choice. See Hyderabad district.
• Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Potohar. Sow earlier, late September to October, so the crop is established before hard frost; spring sowing in March is common in cooler valleys. A winter-hardy variety such as KN92 suits these areas.
• Balochistan. Autumn sowing in October where water is assured; spring sowing in March in the colder uplands. Salinity tolerance matters on many Balochistan soils.

Whatever the district, the principle is the same: give the seedling six to eight weeks of mild weather to put down its taproot. A plant rooted before the first heat or frost will stand for three to four years; one that has not will thin out in its first summer.

Seed rate per acre, seedbed, sowing method and irrigation for لوسن

Seed rate. The common recommendation in Pakistan for clean, high-germination lucerne seed is about 8 to 10 kg per acre (roughly 20–25 kg per hectare) sown in lines or broadcast on a fine seedbed. Kohenoor's general forage guidance is 10–12 kg per acre (25–30 kg/ha), the safer figure on rough seedbeds, when broadcasting into standing water, or wherever conditions are less than ideal. Dirty seed is often sown at 12–15 kg to compensate for low germination and weed seed — one reason clean seed with a written germination figure works out more economical per acre. Tell us your soil and sowing method on WhatsApp and we will suggest the rate for your field rather than a blanket number.

Seedbed (کھیت کی تیاری). Lucerne seed is tiny, and the biggest cause of a poor stand is burying it too deep. Plough two or three times, break the clods, level the field — laser levelling pays on a crop that stands for years and dislikes water in low patches — and apply well-rotted farmyard manure (گوبر کی کھاد) before the last ploughing. On low-phosphorus soils a basal dose of DAP at sowing helps rooting; the quantity depends on a soil test the extension office can arrange. Lucerne fixes its own nitrogen once established and needs little or no urea.

Sowing. Sow about half an inch deep — no more — in lines 20 to 30 cm apart with a drill, or broadcast evenly and cover lightly with a plank. Mixing the seed with dry sand helps spread it evenly. Some Sindh farmers broadcast رجکا into a shallow flood and let the water settle the seed; this works on level fields but wastes seed on uneven ones. Lines make the first weeding much easier.

Irrigation (آبپاشی). A light irrigation immediately after sowing, another after about a week to help emergence, then every 10 to 15 days in winter. From April onwards an established crop in southern Punjab and Sindh is usually watered every 7 to 10 days. Never let water stand on young lucerne for more than a few hours; the crown rots. Monsoon fields need drainage.

First cutting and cutting intervals (کٹائی). The first cutting is typically ready 50 to 60 days after an October sowing, when plants are about a foot tall and the first buds appear. Then cut every 25 to 30 days in winter and 20 to 25 days in the hot months, leaving 5 to 7 cm of stubble so the crown regrows quickly. Cutting too early or too low weakens the stand; too late loses protein as the stem turns fibrous. Six to eight cuttings a year is normal on a good irrigated field, and a stand from quality seed keeps producing for three to four years. Lucerne also sun-dries well for hay in the heat of May and June: cut, turn twice over two or three days, and stack under cover for the monsoon and winter gaps.

Weeds. Weed control in the first 40 days decides the stand: hand-weeding or a light hoe between lines, and a clean field before sowing. After the first cutting the canopy closes and most weeds are shaded out.

Dodder — اکاس بیل / آکاش بیل — the reason to insist on 0% dodder لوسن کے بیج

Ask any lucerne grower in Multan, Khanewal, Vehari or Sanghar what destroyed their last stand and the answer is often one word: اکاس بیل (akas bel, "sky vine"), also written آکاش بیل and known in Punjabi as اکاس ویل or امر ویل. In English it is dodder, Cuscuta, a leafless, rootless yellow-orange parasitic vine that wraps around the lucerne stem and lives on its sap. A patch the size of a charpai in December is a quarter of the field by March. The plants under the vine die, and because dodder seed survives in the soil for years, a badly infested plot cannot go back to lucerne for a long time.

The important fact for a seed buyer: dodder does not walk into a field. It arrives in the seed bag. Dodder seed is small, rounded and close in size to lucerne seed, almost impossible to see by eye in loose or uncleaned seed. This is why Gulf importers write "0% dodder" into their conditions, and why Kohenoor guarantees 0% dodder in writing — the discipline that protects a farm in Saudi Arabia protects a farm in Sahiwal just as well.

Every Kohenoor lucerne lot passes through air-screen cleaners, gravity tables and Sortex optical sorters, and is then tested in the seed laboratory, with ISTA testing per lot: purity 98 percent or higher, germination 85 percent or higher, dodder zero — stated on the lot documents. Seed is sold in sealed, lot-numbered bags, never loose. If you are offered loose لوسن کا بیج from a sack with no lot number and no germination figure, the saving on the bag can cost you the plot. Our page on dodder-free alfalfa seeds explains the cleaning and testing, and what to do if dodder is already in a field (cut and burn the patch before it seeds, do not feed it green, and do not move machinery from that field to a clean one).

لوسن کے بیج کا ریٹ — how to get the current quotation and order direct

The most-searched Urdu phrase about this crop is لوسن کے بیج کا ریٹ — "the rate of lucerne seed". We understand why people want a figure on the page, and we deliberately do not print one. Lucerne seed is an agricultural commodity whose value moves with the harvest, the season, the exchange rate and the variety, and a figure written on a website one month is wrong the next; it also invites comparison with loose, untested seed that is not the same product. So the honest answer to "لوسن کے بیج کا ریٹ کیا ہے؟" is: send a WhatsApp message to +92 310 4929292 with your district, your acreage and your sowing month, and you will receive the current quotation for the variety that suits your field, with the lot's purity and germination figures. No obligation, no middleman margin.

Kohenoor sells direct to the farmer. We do not ask you to find a dealer, an agent or a commission shop. The company that bred the variety, grew, cleaned and tested the seed is the company on the other end of the WhatsApp, and the bag that reaches you carries its lot tag. For the Punjab farmer the seed comes from Khanewal; for Sindh and Balochistan from the head office in Hyderabad, Sindh (1/2 1336 Old Subzi Market, Hyderabad 71000). Delivery to your town or village anywhere in Pakistan, the payment method and the timing are confirmed in the same conversation.

What to send in your first message (Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi or English — all are fine):

• Your name, village or town, tehsil and district (گاؤں، تحصیل، ضلع).
• How many acres (کتنے ایکڑ) you want to sow, and in which month.
• Soil and water: canal or tubewell, any کلر (salinity), heavy or light soil.
• Which animals you feed, and whether you want green fodder only or also hay.
• Lucerne alone, or the full year-round programme with berseem, ryegrass, Protein Grass, sorghum and Rhodes grass from one supplier.

You will receive the quotation, the variety recommendation, the seed rate for your field and the delivery arrangement within 24 hours; one message can cover the whole farm.

Which Kohenoor lucerne for Pakistan: TAIZTAR (non-dormant) or KN92 (cold-tolerant)

Kohenoor supplies two lucerne varieties, chosen by climate rather than by district name.

For most of the Indus plain — the cotton belt of southern Punjab, the whole of lower Sindh — TAIZTAR is the natural choice: a non-dormant lucerne that does not stop in a mild winter, tolerates the heat of May and June and the mild salinity of many tubewell fields, and gives the seventh and eighth cutting that older varieties miss. For the colder north, KN92 is the safer stand. If unsure, a photo of the field and the name of your tehsil is enough for the team to recommend. The technical page is TAIZTAR alfalfa seed. Crude fibre in both runs up to 28 percent at the normal cutting stage, good for hay and silage as well as green feeding; at 22–24 percent crude protein, a daily share of lucerne lets a dairy farmer cut purchased concentrate (ونڈا) while holding milk yield — the practical reason the crop has spread so fast in Punjab's dairy districts.

For overseas Pakistanis and Urdu speakers abroad — the UK, the Gulf and beyond

Many people who search "alfalfa in Urdu", "lucerne in Urdu" or "alfalfa seed Pakistan" are not in Pakistan at all. They are in Bradford, Birmingham, London, Dubai, Riyadh, Doha, Toronto or Sydney, and they fall into three groups.

Managing family land from abroad. The most common case: a family in Pakistan keeps a few buffaloes and some acres, and the son or daughter abroad who sends money home wants to understand what the father or the munshi means when he says the رجکا has gone yellow, or asks for money for بارہ ماسی بیج. This page gives you the vocabulary and the agronomy for that conversation, and a way to make sure the seed bought with your money is clean, tested, sealed and from a company that answers its phone. You can place the order yourself on WhatsApp from anywhere; we deliver to the farm and confirm with the person on the ground.

Pakistanis working on farms in the Gulf. Thousands of Pakistani farm workers, supervisors and managers run the pivots, hay fields and dairy camps of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait, where lucerne is called برسيم حجازي, and many are asked by their employers to source seed. Kohenoor exports lucerne seed to the Gulf and beyond — HS 1209.21, ISTA Orange Certificate per lot, IPPC phytosanitary certificate, 0% dodder in writing, minimum 5 MT with 1 MT trial lots, 7–12 days to FOB Karachi for stock lots — and the export desk replies in English, Arabic and Urdu. See alfalfa seeds for Saudi Arabia, alfalfa seeds for the UAE, or the Arabic pages for السعودية and الإمارات.

Buyers in the UK and the West. British Pakistanis in horse, sheep and smallholding farming sometimes want lucerne for their own land; others buy alfalfa sprouting seed for the health-food trade. Lucerne in Britain is a different agronomic question — a dormant variety and a different calendar — and we are happy to advise. The company your family buys from in Khanewal is the one that ships containers to Europe, the Gulf, East Asia and Australia; the countries page lists every destination. Whichever group you belong to, the contact is the same: WhatsApp +92 310 4929292 or export@kohenoorint.com, in English or Urdu, reply within 24 hours.

Kohenoor in Khanewal and Hyderabad: who you are buying from

KOHENOOR International was founded in 1957 in Hyderabad, Sindh, by the late Mr. Noor Muhammad Aleemi, and is led today by the third generation of the same family. It is a research forage seeds company: the sister company Noorani Seeds runs the breeding and trials, and the retail brand Safa carries the berseem, Protein Grass and other fodder seeds Pakistani farmers know from the shelves. The company is ISO 9001 and HACCP certified, tests to ISTA standards with an Orange Certificate per lot, issues IPPC phytosanitary certificates for export, and is a member of the Australian Seed Federation, with offices in Pakistan, Dubai and Australia, serving more than 70 countries with more than 60 seed products.

For the Pakistani farmer this matters for one reason: the company answering your WhatsApp about لوسن کے بیج in Khanewal is the one whose seed clears inspection at ports in the Gulf, East Asia and Australia. There is no separate "export grade" — the farmer in Mian Channu, Kabirwala or Jahanian gets the same sealed, numbered bag as the importer in Jeddah.

From Khanewal the Punjab team covers the dairy districts of southern and central Punjab — Khanewal, Multan, Vehari, Lodhran, Sahiwal, Toba Tek Singh and beyond — and from Hyderabad the Sindh team covers Hyderabad, Tando Allahyar, Mirpur Khas, Sanghar, Nawabshah and Sukkur, with Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa served from both. The Pakistan home page in Urdu lists every district. Beyond lucerne, one message covers the full year-round programme: Safa berseem for winter tonnage, ryegrass for winter protein, Protein Grass as a complete-ration summer blend, Baymisaal / Super Napier for twelve to fifteen years of bulk fodder from one planting, Rhodes grass for saline land, Sesbania / janter for green manure and goat fodder, and hybrid sorghum and pearl millet for silage. One supplier, one bag quality, one contact.

If you came to this page for a word, you now have it — alfalfa = لوسن = lucerne = رجکا = بارہ ماسی. If you came for the seed, the next step is a WhatsApp message with your district and your acres.

The seed, the bags and the loading — بیج، بوری اور لوڈنگ

Next pages for Pakistani farmers and Urdu speakers

Lucerne seed in Urdu — لوسرن (الفالفا) بیجThe Kohenoor lucerne page written in Urdu for Pakistani farmers: variety, sowing, cuttings and ordering.
اردو میں پڑھیں →

Dodder-free alfalfa seedsHow Kohenoor cleans and tests every lot to 0% dodder, and what to do if اکاس بیل is already in your field.
Read the dodder guide →

TAIZTAR alfalfa seedThe FD10 non-dormant, heat- and salinity-tolerant lucerne bred for Pakistan's plains and the Gulf.
See the variety →

Forage seeds for dairy farmsLucerne, berseem, ryegrass, Protein Grass, Rhodes grass and Napier — the whole year-round programme from one supplier.
Plan the programme →

Frequently asked questions

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