Anyone one here grow alfalfa? Do you have luck planting it in the spring? WAs thinking about doing 2 acres so I could have a few bales for my nurse cows. What variety do you like and how many square bales would you say is a good adverage per acre per season. Any info you can give thank you.
Alfalfa
- Thread starter trin
- Start date
Help Support CattleToday:
Silver
Well-known member
I can't speak for where you are, but up here you can't get a good crop the first year of planting. We plant oats with the hay and harvest the oats late summer with some alfalfa mixed in. The following year is when we get our returns.
Even then, to get a good seed bed for alfalfa we only plant oats the first year the ground is broke up, the following year the sods will be broke down enough to create a good seedbed for alfalfa with oats as the nurse crop.
Even then, to get a good seed bed for alfalfa we only plant oats the first year the ground is broke up, the following year the sods will be broke down enough to create a good seedbed for alfalfa with oats as the nurse crop.
wbvs58
Well-known member
Over here the recommendation is early spring or early autumn so as it has a chance to get going with least competition from the grasses but I think early autumn is the preferred. I have just put in a small patch of lucerne about 1 ha (2.5 acres) for a similar reason to you. I usually get the cows in to behind the house for calving so like to have a good stock of small square bales plus a few for my wife's horse to keep me in the good books. I had put a small amount mixed in with some Tetila rye previously and it seems to have persisted despite spraying it out several times prior to planting other cereal crops. The area I put the lucerne in has had forage crops continually for 2 years now so weeds (other grasses) would be under control, the lucerne has been in for about 3 weeks now, I did 25kg seed/ha using my old seeder with the tubes from the small seed box just dropping it onto the surface of the broken ground and followed by a rubber tyre roller. I seem to have a good even mat of it covering the ground at the moment though around the edges there seems to be a lot of rye coming through as well. I will not hold back on sprays to control anything unwanted.
Ken
Ken
littletom
Well-known member
Had some we planted in spring several years it did pretty good lasted about 4 years. A good bit is grown around me. My personal opinion of it is a expensive p.i.t.a.
