Alfalfa in different languages — names, lucerne vs alfalfa, scientific name and HS code

Alfalfa scientific name: Medicago sativa and what the Latin tells you

The scientific name of alfalfa is Medicago sativa L. — the “L.” marks Linnaeus, who described the species in 1753. It belongs to the legume family, Fabaceae (older texts write Leguminosae), subfamily Faboideae, in the same tribe as clovers and medics. That family membership is not a botanical footnote: it is the reason alfalfa fixes its own nitrogen through root nodules, the reason it carries 22–24% crude protein in the leaf, and the reason it is written into forage rotations from the Nile Delta to the Pampas.

The genus name Medicago comes from the Greek mēdikē, “the Median plant” — the Medes of ancient Persia. Classical writers recorded that the crop reached Greece from Media in the fifth century BCE, and the Italian name erba medica and the Greek μηδική still say “Median grass” two and a half thousand years later. Sativa simply means “cultivated”, as in Oryza sativa (rice) or Cannabis sativa, and distinguishes the sown crop from its wild relatives.

Within the species, agronomists recognise several subspecies. M. sativa subsp. sativa is the purple-flowered, upright plant that fills a hayfield; subsp. falcata is the yellow-flowered, very winter-hardy relative of the Eurasian steppe; and subsp. × varia is the hybrid between them, the source of much of the cold tolerance in northern cultivars. Cultivated alfalfa is an autotetraploid with 32 chromosomes, which is part of why a modern cultivar represents decades of selection rather than a single cross.

For a buyer, the practical upshot is this: whatever the label says — alfalfa, lucerne, yonca, 苜蓿 — the phytosanitary certificate, the ISTA Orange Certificate and the customs declaration will all carry Medicago sativa. It is the one name that does not need translating. When Kohenoor's export desk issues a Certificate of Analysis for a lot of TAIZTAR or KN92, the species line reads Medicago sativa whether the destination is Jeddah, Mombasa or Manila.

Lucerne vs alfalfa: two words, one plant, and where each is used

“Lucerne vs alfalfa” is one of the most common questions the export desk receives from first-time buyers, and the answer is that there is no botanical difference whatsoever. Both words name Medicago sativa. The split is purely linguistic and geographic.

Alfalfa entered English through Spanish. Spanish took it from Andalusian Arabic al-faṣfaṣa (الفصفصة), and the Arabic in turn goes back to a Persian word for the plant, aspast or ispist, which is also the ancestor of the Pashto spasta in the table below. The word travelled with the plant: Arab agronomists carried alfalfa across North Africa into Spain, Spanish colonists carried it to the Americas, and American agriculture carried the word into global seed trade in the twentieth century. Today “alfalfa” is the standard word in the United States, Canada, Mexico, all of Spanish-speaking South America, Brazil (as alfafa), in Japanese and Korean loanwords, and in most international seed catalogues, tariff schedules and scientific papers.

Lucerne entered English from French luzerne, which is usually traced to a Provençal word for a glow-worm, said to refer to the shiny seed — though dictionaries treat that origin as probable rather than certain. It is the word of Britain and the Commonwealth: the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the agricultural English of Pakistan, Kenya, Zambia and much of anglophone Africa. It is also the root of the French, German, Dutch, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, Russian, Scandinavian and Baltic names, which is why a European seed catalogue in any of those languages will look familiar once you know the pattern.

In practice the two words coexist inside single countries. A Pakistani farmer says lusan, writes “lucerne” on a tender and buys a bag labelled “alfalfa seed”. The Harmonized System itself hedges by writing “lucerne (alfalfa)” in the heading text. Our own site reflects the split: the Pakistan domestic pages at /pk/lucerne-alfalfa-beej/ lead with lucerne, the export pages lead with alfalfa, and the seed in the bag is identical.

One trap worth naming: in Egypt and Sudan the word barsīm on its own means Egyptian clover (Trifolium alexandrinum, berseem), not alfalfa — alfalfa is barsīm ḥijāzī, “Hijazi clover”. Likewise shaftal in Persian and Urdu is Persian clover (T. resupinatum), not alfalfa. When a specification matters, write Medicago sativa next to whatever common name you use.

Alfalfa in different languages: the full table with native script

The table below lists the name for alfalfa in 60 languages and regional varieties, with native script where the language does not use the Latin alphabet, a transliteration, and a short note on where the word is used and what to watch for. It is organised roughly by region: the Arabic-speaking world, then Persian and Turkic Central Asia, East and South-East Asia, South Asia, Europe, and Africa. Entries marked “commonly” are everyday usages the desk hears from buyers and growers rather than dictionary forms; where a language has no settled native word, the international loanword is given because that is what seed shops and tenders in that country actually use.

Two languages are deliberately not in this table, and a few more are left out because the desk is not confident of the standard form. If you need a name that is missing — Burmese, Khmer, Lao, Malagasy, Wolof, Tigrinya, Oromo, Zulu, Hausa beyond the loanword — ask on WhatsApp and we will check with buyers in that market before answering, rather than guess in print.

Alfalfa in Arabic: barsim hijazi, jatt, fisfisa and la luzerne en arabe

Arabic is the language in which alfalfa has the most names in daily use, and the one in which getting the word right matters most for trade, because the Gulf and North Africa are the largest import markets for both alfalfa seed and alfalfa hay. The three main words are regional rather than interchangeable.

• برسيم حجازي (barsīm ḥijāzī) — “Hijazi clover”. The standard name in Egypt, Sudan, Jordan, Palestine and Syria, and the word that appears on Egyptian government tenders and Sudanese import licences. Plain barsīm means berseem (Egyptian clover); the qualifier ḥijāzī — “from the Hijaz”, the western Arabian region — marks alfalfa.
• جت (jatt) — the everyday word across the Gulf: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. Green jatt is sold in bundles at livestock markets for camels, sheep and goats, and bidhūr jatt (بذور جت, jatt seeds) is the phrase a Gulf buyer types. Our Arabic jatt seed page is at /ar/jat-seeds/.
• فصفصة (fiṣfiṣa) — the classical and literary word, still current in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, and the direct ancestor of Spanish and English “alfalfa”. Formal agricultural writing across the Arab world uses al-fiṣfiṣa when it wants one word for every country.
• قضب (qaḍb) — a regional word heard in Yemen and parts of southern Saudi Arabia; commonly understood there but not elsewhere.

French speakers searching for “la luzerne en arabe” — typically in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritania or Lebanon — will find that the Maghreb answer is fiṣfiṣa (فصفصة), with barsīm ḥijāzī understood in formal texts and jatt rarely used west of Egypt. In Morocco you may also hear the dialect form fessa (فصة), a shortening of the same word.

Kohenoor's export desk replies in Arabic as well as English, and the Arabic country guides — السعودية, مصر, العراق, الإمارات — use the regional word their readers use. The seed in every case is TAIZTAR, the FD10 non-dormant variety bred for heat and salinity.

Alfalfa in Farsi, Turkish, Urdu, Russian and the Central Asian languages

A broad band of countries from Turkey through Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the five Central Asian republics to Mongolia and western China grows alfalfa as its primary perennial forage, and the names form two families: the Persian–Turkic root behind yonjeh, yonca, yunuchqa and ýorunja, and the Russian lyutserna inherited from Soviet-era agronomy.

Alfalfa in Farsi is یونجه, yonjeh. Iran is one of the oldest alfalfa-growing regions on record — the plant may have been domesticated on the Iranian plateau — and Iranian buyers searching for seed usually type بذر یونجه (bazr-e yonjeh, alfalfa seed). Our Iran guide is at /alfalfa-seeds-iran/. In Afghanistan, Dari speakers more often say رشقه (rishqa), and Pashto speakers use سپستا (spasta) or rishqa; both understand yonjeh as well.

Alfalfa in Turkish is yonca, and the cultivated species is kaba yonca. Turkey is a major producer and seed market, with the Konya plain, central Anatolia and the south-east all growing irrigated alfalfa; the Turkey guide is at /alfalfa-seeds-turkey/. Azerbaijani uses the same word.

Alfalfa in Urdu is لوسن, lusan, clearly the local form of “lucerne” from the British period. Farmers in Sindh and the Punjab say lusan; seed bags and tenders say lucerne or alfalfa. The Urdu reference page is at /alfalfa-in-urdu/ and the Pakistan hub at /pk/.

Alfalfa in Russian is люцерна, lyutserna, with the full botanical name lyutserna posevnaya (“sown lucerne”). The same word is used in Ukrainian and Bulgarian and is understood throughout Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, where it sits alongside the national-language words: Kazakh жоңышқа (zhongyshqa), Kyrgyz беде (bede), Uzbek beda, Tajik юнучқа (yunuchqa), Turkmen ýorunja. Mongolian stands apart with царгас (tsargas). Guides for these markets: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia.

For this whole belt the variety question is dormancy. Southern Iran, the Pakistani plains and the Gulf want a non-dormant FD10 variety like TAIZTAR that keeps growing through a hot summer; the Anatolian plateau, northern Kazakhstan and Mongolia want the cold-tolerant FD9 KN92 that survives a hard winter and comes back in spring. Both ship from Karachi under the same HS code with the same document set.

Alfalfa in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and South-East Asian languages

Alfalfa in Chinese is 紫花苜蓿 (zǐhuā mùxu, “purple-flowered mùxu”) in formal and botanical use, and simply 苜蓿 (mùxu) in everyday speech and on import declarations. The word is ancient: Chinese records describe mùxu arriving from Central Asia along with the horses it was meant to feed, more than two thousand years ago. China is today the world's largest importer of alfalfa hay and a significant importer of seed, with Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia and Xinjiang the main growing regions; the China guide is at /alfalfa-seeds-china/, and the sprouting-seed market guide for China and Hong Kong is at /sprouting-alfalfa-seeds-china/.

Alfalfa in Japanese is the loanword アルファルファ (arufarufa) in trade, food and feed, and ムラサキウマゴヤシ (murasaki umagoyashi, “purple horse-fodder”) as the native botanical name. Japan imports alfalfa chiefly as hay and cubes for dairy, and as sprouting seed for the fresh-sprout trade.

Alfalfa in Korean is 알팔파 (alpalpa), and the search phrase a Korean buyer types is 알팔파 종자 (alpalpa jongja, alfalfa seed) or 알팔파 씨앗. The botanical name is 자주개자리 (jaju-gaejari). South Korea's dairy herd depends heavily on imported alfalfa hay, and its sprout industry buys untreated alfalfa seed by the container; see /alfalfa-seeds-south-korea/ and /sprouting-alfalfa-seeds-korea/.

Across South-East Asia the names are mostly loanwords, because alfalfa is a newer crop there. Vietnamese has a native form, cỏ linh lăng; Thai writes อัลฟัลฟา; Indonesian, Malay and Tagalog use alfalfa unchanged. In the Philippines the crop is being trialled for dairy and goat farms in the cooler uplands and for sprouting; see /alfalfa-in-the-philippines/ and /alfalfa-seeds-philippines/. In the humid tropics a non-dormant variety on well-drained soil is the usual starting point — confirm with your local extension office before committing a large area.

Alfalfa in Swahili, Amharic, Hausa and the local names in Africa

Alfalfa is spreading fast on African dairy and small-ruminant farms, and the question “what is the alfalfa local name in Nigeria?” or “alfalfa in Swahili?” comes up weekly on our WhatsApp line. The honest answer is that most African languages have no old word for the plant, because it is a recent introduction; what they have is a loanword and, in a few cases, a locally adapted form.

• Swahili (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda): lusina is heard among dairy farmers and in some extension materials — a Swahili adaptation of “lucerne” — but most agrovets and farmers simply say alfalfa. Either word is understood. Kenya's smallholder dairy belt around Nakuru, Nyandarua and Meru is the most active alfalfa-growing area in East Africa; see /alfalfa-seeds-kenya/ and /alfalfa-seeds-tanzania/.
• Amharic (Ethiopia): አልፋልፋ, the loanword, is used in Ethiopian research and extension publications; Ethiopia has one of Africa's largest cattle populations and growing interest in irrigated forage in the Rift Valley. See /alfalfa-seeds-ethiopia/.
• Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo (Nigeria): there is no established Hausa, Yoruba or Igbo word for alfalfa in common use. Nigerian farmers, feed millers and the agricultural ministries use alfalfa, and that is the word to search and to write on a tender. Northern Nigeria's Fulani cattle economy and the Kano–Kaduna irrigated belt are where the crop is being adopted; see /alfalfa-seeds-nigeria/.
• Somali: alfalfa, as a loanword; Somali camel and goat herders are among the fastest-growing buyers of irrigated forage seed on the Horn. See /alfalfa-seeds-somalia/.
• Afrikaans (South Africa, Namibia): lusern, alongside English “lucerne”. South Africa is Africa's established lucerne producer, with the Northern Cape and Western Cape irrigation schemes. See /alfalfa-seeds-south-africa/.
• Arabic-speaking North Africa (Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania): see the Arabic section above — barsīm ḥijāzī in the Nile valley, fiṣfiṣa or fessa in the Maghreb.

For most of tropical and sub-tropical Africa the agronomic fit is a non-dormant variety on irrigated or high-water-table land, cut every 25–35 days; in the highlands of Kenya and Ethiopia and in the South African winter-rainfall zone a semi-dormant or dormant type may suit better. Kohenoor supplies both TAIZTAR (FD10) and KN92 (FD9), and the desk will recommend between them from your altitude, rainfall and irrigation picture — ask before ordering rather than after planting.

Alfalfa in Spanish, Portuguese, French and the European names

Europe and the Americas are where the alfalfa/lucerne split is clearest, and where a buyer can usually guess the word from the language family.

Alfalfa in Spanish is simply alfalfa, identical from Spain through Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. Spain is Europe's largest producer and a major hay exporter to the Gulf; Argentina's Pampas and Chile's central valley grow large irrigated and dryland areas. Spanish is also the language in which the Arabic origin is most visible — al-faṣfaṣa became alfalfa in medieval Andalusia and never changed. See /alfalfa-seeds-argentina/.

Portuguese splits by continent: alfafa in Brazil, luzerna in Portugal, with both understood in either country and in Angola and Mozambique. See /alfalfa-seeds-brazil/. French is luzerne everywhere — France, Belgium, Switzerland, Québec, and the francophone countries of West and North Africa — with luzerne cultivée as the full botanical name. Italian is erba medica, the “Median grass”, and Italy's Po valley is a long-standing centre of lucerne hay and dehydrated-alfalfa production.

Elsewhere in Europe the lucerne root dominates: German Luzerne (with Saatluzerne for the cultivated species), Dutch luzerne, Danish lucerne, Swedish and Norwegian lusern or blålusern, Polish lucerna siewna, Slovak and Hungarian lucerna, Romanian lucernă, Latvian lucerna, Lithuanian liucerna, Estonian lutsern, and the Cyrillic люцерна of Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian and Serbian. The exceptions are worth knowing: Czech uses a completely different word, vojtěška; Finnish says sinimailanen, “blue medic”; and Greek keeps the ancient μηδική. Serbo-Croatian uses lucerka.

Within the EU, alfalfa seed marketed for sowing must normally be of a listed variety certified to the applicable seed standards; an importer confirms the current rules with the national seed authority before contracting. Kohenoor's European buyers are most often sprout producers rather than hay growers; the guide for the EU and UK is at /sprouting-alfalfa-seeds-europe/.

Alfalfa seed HS code 1209.21 — and alfalfa hay, meal and pellets under heading 1214

The HS code for alfalfa seed is 1209.21. Understanding why makes the whole customs conversation easier, so here is the structure as it stands in the Harmonized System at the time of writing.

• Chapter 12 of the Harmonized System covers “oil seeds and oleaginous fruits; miscellaneous grains, seeds and fruit; industrial or medicinal plants; straw and fodder”. Alfalfa appears in it twice — once as seed, once as fodder.
• Heading 12.09 is “seeds, fruit and spores, of a kind used for sowing”. The phrase “of a kind used for sowing” is the test: seed in this heading is planting material, and it is excluded from the headings for grain and food.
• Subheading 1209.2 gathers “seeds of forage plants”, and within it 1209.21 is “lucerne (alfalfa) seed”. Its neighbours are 1209.22 clover (Trifolium) seed, 1209.23 fescue seed, 1209.24 Kentucky blue grass seed, 1209.25 rye grass seed, and 1209.29 other forage seeds — which is where Rhodes grass, sorghum-sudan hybrids and most of the rest of a forage programme fall.

The six-digit code 1209.21 is the same in every country that uses the Harmonized System, which is almost all of them. National tariff lines extend it to eight or ten digits — a Gulf importer, a Kenyan importer and a Brazilian importer will each see a longer code on the entry — and the duty rate, VAT treatment and any import permit requirement are set at that national level, not by the six-digit heading. Many countries admit forage seed at zero or low duty as an agricultural input, but that is a national decision and it changes; confirm the national tariff line and duty with your customs broker before you contract, and tell the exporter if your authority wants a particular description on the invoice.

A few practical notes from the desk's experience with 1209.21 shipments:

• The commercial invoice should read “alfalfa (lucerne) seed, Medicago sativa, for sowing”, with the variety name, lot number, net weight and HS code. Customs officers in non-English-speaking countries find the Latin name more useful than either common name.
• Seed for sowing almost always requires an IPPC phytosanitary certificate from the exporting country's plant-protection authority, and frequently an import permit issued in advance by the importing country's authority. Kohenoor issues the phytosanitary certificate for every shipment; the import permit is the buyer's to obtain, and we help with the wording.
• Alfalfa seed bought for sprouting is still Medicago sativa seed and is commonly declared under 1209.21, but some customs administrations and food-safety authorities treat seed for human consumption differently from seed for sowing. If your lot is for the sprout trade, raise the point with your broker; our sprouting-seed hub covers the food-safety side.
• Dodder (Cuscuta) is the contaminant that most often stops an alfalfa-seed entry at the border. Kohenoor guarantees 0% dodder in writing on every lot — see /dodder-free-alfalfa-seeds/.

Alfalfa hay, meal and pellets: heading 1214. Alfalfa that is not seed — hay, bales, cubes, meal and pellets — does not travel under 1209. It falls under heading 12.14, “swedes, mangolds, fodder roots, hay, lucerne (alfalfa), clover, sainfoin, forage kale, lupines, vetches and similar forage products, whether or not in the form of pellets”. Within it, at the time of writing:

Two cautions. National tariff schedules differ on where alfalfa cubes and compressed bales sit and whether “meal” includes sun-cured product; confirm the national tariff line with your broker rather than reading the six-digit heading as settled. And hay and meal are regulated as animal feed, not planting material, so feed-safety declarations, fumigation certificates and feed-registration requirements come into play that do not apply to seed.

Kohenoor is a seed company: we export alfalfa seed under 1209.21 and do not trade hay or meal. If you are a hay importer looking to grow rather than buy — a Gulf dairy, a Chinese feedlot, a Korean cooperative — the seed is where that conversation starts, and the large-scale forage projects page covers how a hay programme is built from seed.

Why the name matters when you buy: tenders, search and customs

A reference page about words earns its place on a seed exporter's website for three practical reasons.

Tenders and specifications. A tender in Egypt will ask for barsīm ḥijāzī; in Saudi Arabia for jatt; in Kazakhstan for lyutserna; in Kenya for lucerne; in the Philippines for alfalfa. A supplier who cannot match the word to the species, and write Medicago sativa and a fall-dormancy class next to it, looks like a trader rather than a seed company. Kohenoor's export desk will help you write the specification so that what you ask for is what arrives.

Finding a supplier in your own language. A buyer searches in the word they grew up with. Search engines and answer engines translate well, but a page that carries the actual script — یونجه, 苜蓿, 알팔파 종자, برسيم حجازي — is still what connects a Persian, Chinese, Korean or Arabic search to an exporter's door. That is why Kohenoor publishes reference pages in Urdu, Nepali and Arabic alongside the English country guides, and why this table exists.

Customs clearance. The invoice, the phytosanitary certificate, the ISTA Orange Certificate and the importer's declaration must all describe the same thing. Medicago sativa, “lucerne (alfalfa) seed, for sowing”, HS 1209.21, variety name and lot number on every document is the formula that clears without a query in Jebel Ali, Mombasa, Manila or Santos. When a national authority wants the local word as well — Arabic on a Saudi document, Chinese on a GACC declaration — we print it.

The seed behind all of this is the same: TAIZTAR, our FD10 non-dormant variety bred on modern genetics for heat and salinity, the superior replacement for the late-1970s CUF-101, and KN92, our FD9 cold-tolerant variety. Both are supplied at ≥98% purity, ≥85% germination and 0% dodder guaranteed in writing, in 25 kg lot-tagged bags, ISTA-tested per lot, with IPPC phytosanitary, ISO 9001 and HACCP documentation. Seed rate is 25–30 kg per hectare, the minimum order is 5 MT with 1 MT trial lots accepted, and in-stock lots load FOB Karachi within 7–12 days.

Buying alfalfa seed direct from Kohenoor, in any of these languages

Kohenoor International has grown, cleaned, tested and exported Medicago sativa seed from Hyderabad, Sindh, since 1957 — three generations of one family, a research forage seed company with its own laboratory and cleaning line, ISO 9001 and HACCP certified, a member of the Australian Seed Federation, with offices in Pakistan, Dubai and Australia. The company ships direct to buyers in more than 70 countries, and the country guides now cover well over a hundred destinations. There is no dealer, agent or intermediary to find: you deal with the export desk, the seed is loaded at Karachi, and it is delivered to your port or your door under one set of documents.

Whatever word you use for the crop, the enquiry is the same three lines: quantity, destination port or city, and what the seed is for (hay, grazing, silage, a dairy ration, camel and small-ruminant forage, or sprouting). Send it by WhatsApp to +92 310 4929292 or by email to export@kohenoorint.com. The desk replies within 24 hours in English, and also in Arabic, Spanish and French, with a quotation per lot and destination, the current lot's ISTA certificate and COA, a recommendation between TAIZTAR and KN92 for your climate, and a sailing schedule. Quotations are given on WhatsApp or by email only, per lot and destination; nothing is published on the website because freight, season and lot change every week.

Useful next pages:

• Alfalfa seeds exporter — the full company and export guide
• TAIZTAR alfalfa seed — FD10, non-dormant, heat and salinity tolerant
• Countries we export to — every country guide
• Alfalfa in Urdu — لوسن · Alfalfa in Nepali — अल्फाल्फा · Alfalfa in the Philippines · بذور الجت — Arabic
• Sprouting seeds — untreated food-grade alfalfa and 20+ species
• Forage seeds for dairy farms · camel, sheep and goat farms · year-round forage programme

And if the name you need is not in the table, say so in the first message. Learning what a crop is called where you farm is part of the job.

The seed, the field and the loading

Where to go next

Alfalfa seeds exporter — the full guideHow Kohenoor grows, cleans, tests and ships Medicago sativa seed direct to 70+ countries.
Read the exporter guide →

TAIZTAR alfalfa seedFD10 non-dormant, heat and salinity tolerant, bred on modern genetics — the superior replacement for CUF-101.
See the variety →

Countries we export toCountry-by-country guides in English and Arabic, from Saudi Arabia and Kenya to Turkey, Iran and the Philippines.
Browse the countries →

Forage seeds for dairy farmsAlfalfa, Rhodes grass, berseem, ryegrass and sorghum — one supplier for the whole forage programme.
See the forage range →

Frequently asked questions

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