Fall Seeding – it is really quite simple what to do

In the last decade, forages have seen a renaissance in importance for dairy rations.    Nutritionists have gradually seen the light on the energy value in digestible fiber.    The older “state of the art” ration of pure alfalfa haylage cut early-bud (its lowest fiber point) with shelled corn as the energy source (again, starch, not fiber) and the protein targets balanced with soybean meal (which used to be a by-product feed) produced more milk than baled hay, ground ear corn, oats and corn stalks, BUT kept veterinarians busy with displaced abomasums and high blood urea levels, depressed reproduction, laminitis, etc.    Out of this “one size fits all” dairy ration grew the historically-blind concept that “grass is a weed” rather than the most basic and adaptable soil builder and ruminant feed that in earlier eras was the basis of pastoral dairying.

Adapting silos to storage of chopped alfalfa hay appeared to solve one of the big problems of hay harvesting—the visual loss of leaf dry matter at baling and after.    Lightly wilted and windrowed alfalfa still looked like it retained its protein value in saved leaves.     We assumed that chaff that blew over the top of the wagons was all chaff and stalk.     We were usually fooling ourselves.

      

The mechanical storage innovation that proved you could feed hay in nearly the same quality as it was harvested, and suffer minimal loss of leaf volume, was the baleage (plastic wrapped bale) system, which proved that your return on the plastic used was 10 times its cost in saved feed.   In areas of the dairy world such as the Canadian Maritimes, where herd sizes are typically 70 to 200 cows, this matches equipment investment to available labor and gets the feed quality job done.

The lagging part of the nutrient harvesting in the cattle industry today involves dry hay.    Cows crave fiber, for rumen “scratch factor”, and crave the buffering of drier elements in an otherwise wet ration.    So the search for affordable good dry hay is still ongoing.    But those who are now adding better grasses to their alfalfa fields are finding their cows feel (and milk) better already.

What is the issue with dry hay?

The many steps involved in making dry alfalfa hay add up to a significant loss of nutrients we basically just return to the ground as surface mulch.    How much do we lose?    Here is some data that has been around awhile already:

Mowing                                2% of leaves lost             1% of dry matter lost

Mower/conditioner              3% of leaves lost              2% of dry matter lost

Discbine                               4% of leaves lost             3% of dry matter lost

Flail mower/conditioner      5% of leaves lost             4% of dry matter lost

Raking: 

             at 70% moisture      2% of leaves lost             2% of dry matter lost

             at 33% moisture      12% of leaves lost           7% of dry matter lost

Tedding:

            At 70% moisture      2% of leaves lost             1% of dry matter lost

            At 33% moisture      12% of leaves lost           6% of dry matter lost

Baling:   (stacking flat wagons by hand)

            At 20% moisture      6% of leaves lost             4% of dry matter lost

            At 12% moisture      8% of leaves lost             6% of dry matter lost

              (ejector bales thrown into basket wagons)

            At 18% moisture      8% of leaves lost             5% of dry matter lost

              (round balers, different designs)

            range of equipt        10%-21% leaves lost       6%-13% dry matter lost

              (Stack wagon picking up bales)

                                            24% leaves lost                15% dry matter lost

Total losses:                        12%-50% of leaves          7%-30% dry matter

Your equipment dealer will make a case for converting to wet wrap baling, so you can harvest all the alfalfa hay you grow.    And there is an issue, as hay values have risen to the point where this means as much as $150 per acre in feed value you grew but could not get to your cows.

There is another factor.    Is “pure alfalfa” the best dry hay “crop”, or could “mixed alfalfa grass and clover” be a better deal all the way around?    In the first place, with grass and alfalfa side by side in the field, you have the more fibrous grass to attach those flimsy alfalfa leaves and prevent some from falling to the ground.    In the second place, alfalfa’s energy values are inferior to the new, improved multi season red clovers that can add some fiber energy punch to your harvest.

SO—do you want to seed some better hay?     Here’s a simple seeding mix to get you thinking.

Kingfisher  444  or one of our other improved root structure alfalfas       15-18 pounds/ acre

Emerald Red (4 season) or Freedom Red (3 season) clovers                       2-  3 pounds/ acre

STF 43 or other endophyte free tall fescues  (improved grasses)              10-  7 pounds/ acre      

This will produce great baled hay, but would produce even better bunk silo haylage or wrapped baleage.    Clover adds fiber energy and palatability, the grass adds fiber energy and tonnage at the level of protein modern dairy rations suggest.    The alfalfa will grow in the summer heat so that you can justify the fuel and time of each cutting.    The grasses we use no longer head out ahead of the alfalfa, so you harvest optimum feed from all three species.    

The seeding rates may be higher than Grandpa used—but the blended cost of all this additional plant growth will be less than a straight alfalfa seeding at usual recommendations.    More seed means more harvestable feed value, the alfalfa+clover+grass mix means sufficient fiber levels to keep your cows healthy (fewer displacements, less laminitis, less acidosis, better reproduction).  

More importantly, returning grass to your seeding mix will add beneficial root mass to the soil, making it capable of holding more rain water and adding beneficial organic matter.

Think about it.     Fall is a great time to plant a new seeding.     We have the right seed to do it.

Of course, if you prefer, Spring is also a great time to plant a new seeding, perhaps with cover from an equally high digestible small grain like forage oats or spring triticale to harvest first.

Can we still buy good old “vernal” alfalfa?

“Vernal” and “cheap” have become almost synonymous terms for the basic, commodity alfalfa seed that could be bought at a lower price from your local elevator and seemed to survive more seasons than newer higher yielding varieties.

However, “Vernal” was in fact a specific variety, one of the four or five improved alfalfa varieties that developed from the first land-grant plant breeding experiments.

“Vernal” as a variety was developed by University of Wisconsin in the 1950s and became very popular in the upper Midwest because Wisconsin’s climate (including winter) and its glacial soil varieties were so similar to lots of midwestern states, including Michigan.

The name came from the “vernal equinox”, as an alfalfa that went fully dormant at a time in the late fall and did not awaken again until well past the first cool thawing spring days.

This was a meaningful characteristic, as alfalfa is originally from temperate, arid parts of the world that never experienced a Wisconsin (or Michigan) winter.    The original plant scientists had to find plants that would go dormant for winter and keep the root alive to regrow next spring.    Thus, “vernal” we could grow north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Our grandfathers all asked for “vernal” seed, and because it was cheaper than the newer patented cultivars that came into focus in the 1970s and after (once it became possible to patent a plant variety), we developed the idea that “vernal” meant “generic”.

This is “patently” untrue.    Basically, “vernal” was a variety developed before patenting, and given gratis to the alfalfa breeding world by University of Wisconsin.    In fact, there are still many seed companies (primarily in Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa) who are active in Vernal Alfalfa propogation, and tend to sell seed direct to the farmers seeking it.  (You can find them easily by searching for “Vernal Alfalfa” on any internet Search Engine.)

The biggest surprise is – the price

In spite of being a non-patented variety, and in spite of the higher annual production from the many newer patented varieties of alfalfa, “vernal” alfalfa now sells for a minimum of $3.00 per pound of seed, at the grower’s farm warehouse.

Thus, when your local seed source quotes improved varieties of patented higher yield and disease resistant alfalfa, and no longer handles a “cheap vernal”, the real reason is – if I cannot sell it cheaper, why not sell something that will yield better and test higher?

Most improved patented varieties will sell for $4.00 to $6.00 per pound, with the newest (the first true “hybrid” alfalfas) bringing $7.00 per pound.   (I have no idea what Roundup Ready alfalfa costs, because unlike Monsanto, I do not believe “grass is a weed” and find the highest feed testing and yielding hay and haylage is made from mixed seedings: grass and alfalfa, maybe a bit of clover thrown in as well.)  

Thus, if you are paying over $3.00 per pound plus freight to buy “vernal” alfalfa, and get 20% less protein and up to 30% less yield per acre than you would get from new varieties that seeding better last twice as long in order to break even against the cost of standouts like Kingfisher 444… which, by the way, has a branch rooted character making it more able to deal with wet feet than those first “improved” varieties Grandpa rejected.

Why do alfalfa stands have such shorter lives today?

We have accepted a generalization that was based on our inability to adapt our practices to the requirements of a higher yielding crop variety.

If you milk cows, you know that the higher genetic potential cows have to be fed more to produce more, and have to be fed a balanced ration to stay healthy while sustaining yield through more calvings for a longer lifetime.    Likewise, if you feed steers, you know that the higher growth potential steer also needs to be fed more and what you feed needs to be higher energy for the growth to occur in a shorter period of feeding time.

Consistent with all nature, higher yield alfalfas are just like the animals that eat it—need to be “fed” more and the soil has to stay in elemental “balance”.

Most of us grew up with advice that to grow lots of alfalfa, you keep your pHs in a range close to 6.8-7.0, and then all you need are Phosphorus and Potassium (Potash).     This was true as far as it went, but everyone overlooked the primary element nearly all plants take up is Calcium.      For animal farms growing alfalfa, using manure as a fertilizer, the problems became particular to a simple fact:    Calcium and Phosphorus taken off fields by cows (or harvested and fed to cows) leaves the soil as milk and bones, while Potash and Magnesium used by their organs returns in the urine and manure to the soil.   Over time, while the sum total of these mineral elements keeps the pH fairly constant, Calcium and to a lesser extent Phosphorus are slowly depleted.     Even when Ca and P levels are present, an excess of the Potassium and Magnesium elements will “chelate” (bind) to the remaining Calcium and Phosphorus, making it less available for the plant growth.

Thus, Vernal, which had a more moderate production yield profile, used to persist longer, but today is no more likely than a high potential alfalfa to persist if we are not replacing soil Calcium (and protecting elements like Phosphorus as well as Sulfur, which keeps the energy density higher in the plant tissue).    For those using animal manure as fertilizer a cheap way to do this is to buy “Gypsum Lime” (a higher sulfur content powdered lime) and put some on any time you have tilled up a residue field to establish a new seeding.

      

The other aspect that is shortening stand life is our tendency to take added cuttings.   The high yield oriented farmer will cut early, cut every 28 days, and cut late in the fall (after the “hessian fly” date) with a goal of five cuttings per season.    Grandpa was always in a good mood if we made three good cuttings, and his stands lasted longer (but a lot of feed was left in the fields each fall, as “bait” for all the wild game species hunted in winter).

Alfalfa roots need to have a high reserve of stored energy to be vigorous in the spring.