Alfalfa hay

[#LHB#]

Not shur if this is were I need to post this or not but, I have a friend who raises barrel racing horses and she wonts me to raise about 15 acres of alfalfa for her and the people she rides with I know nothing about alfalfa is there any advice or tips yaw could give me. I would appreciate it.

 

[TennesseeTuxedo]

Tell us where you are located as that will have great bearing on the advice you'll get here.

Oh, and :welcome:

 

[#LHB#]

Sorry im from eastern North Carolina and Thanks.

 

[TennesseeTuxedo]

Well, sooner or later somebody with some valuable insight will chime in I suppose.

 

[angusdave63]

contact a local agronamist he or she should be a big help.

 

[hayray]

Varieties and time of planting are specific to your area so contact local extension service for help. Main points are that soil prep are more important then for grass stand establishment. Factors such as soil Ph and fertility, and elimination of competing perennials first are important to have in line before planting or stand establishment or success can be pretty poor.

 

[#LHB#]

Thanks and I have been in contact with my local extension service and she has been helping me. I was more asking about tips on baleing it and keeping all the nutrients with the plant is there any tricks with that or is it pretty stait forward.

 

[hayray]

Make sure not to rake it when it is too dry and also bale it before it gets over-mature. Also, in your climate you may need a conditioner setup on your mower, non-conditioned afalfa is hard to dry. I just baled a farm of one month over due 3rd cut and it looks bad, alot of the stems were defoliated just from being so over-mature so then I had to be extra careful how I handled it afterwards just to retain what little leaves I had afterwards. Was counting on this farm going to my standardbred customers but not sure if it will pass the grade. Alot of other crops hold the maturity better and are less pest resistant but are not as productive and nutritious as alfalfa. Alfalfa can be a hard crop to be profitable on so make sure you are going to get paid well for it. Alfalfa takes higher inputs then most other hay crops.

 

[#LHB#]

Ok thank you, we were wondering about that if we needed to buy a mower conditioner or not.

 

[dun]

Get a good spray rig. In order to make good quialty alfalfa takes a lot of labor. Needs fertilizing at least once a year and will need spraying for weeds after each cutting. If I was going to do it I would go with RR alfalfa for the simple reason that I think you will save in herbicides over the cost of the seed.