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Some good pasture still may be available this fall – from your alfalfa fields! Alfalfa can provide considerable, high-quality grazing this fall. Grazing avoids the problem of slow curing hay that often occurs during the fall, and it eliminates the cost of baling.
Research results from the Northeast, Corn Belt, Gulf states, Great Plains, Intermountain and Pacific Northwest all agree: Pastures that receive a significant amount of their production from legumes are more profitable than nitrogen-fertilized pastures.
Proper moisture content may be the most important aspect to making good silage. Silage harvested too wet and immature reduces yield per acre. It can result in nutrient losses and environmental damage from seepage, and it often produces an inefficient, sour clostridial fermentation that reduces intake by livestock as well as experiences extra dry matter losses.
Have you taken a good look at your alfalfa stands lately? They might be getting a little thin.
Most alfalfa fields start to lose stand and production ability after cutting hay for several years.
When manure needs to be spread during summer, sometimes the only place available is an alfalfa field.
Manure can provide valuable nutrients to alfalfa, particularly phosphorus, potassium and boron. This may increase alfalfa yield or reduce fertilizer costs. Alfalfa also will absorb the nitrates from manure, reducing the risk of environmental contamination.
But manure can cause problems for alfalfa.
Every time you harvest a field of alfalfa, as much as 70 percent of the plants are driven over by the equipment used to cut, rake, bale or chop, and remove the alfalfa from the field. During an entire year, some plants may be driven over 10 times.
Management-intensive grazing and other intensive grazing systems have been promoted for quite a few years, but what does the word "intensive" mean when it is used with grazing?
When do you cut your grass hay? Do you wait until all row crops are planted? Maybe you plan to cut between your first and second irrigation of corn or cutting of alfalfa. Some growers wait until mid to late summer to minimize weather risks or cut off late emerging weeds. Or, like some folks, maybe you cut grass hay just when you get around to it.
Hay and haylage often contain more dirt than many growers or livestock producers realize. Since dirt is mostly silica (sand), it has very little nutritional value. In forages, the amount of dirt contamination can be estimated by measuring the ash content of the forage.
