MANAGING PASTURES FOR OPTIMUM FORAGE PRODUCTION

 

In the fall, make a decision which field will “winter” your cattle.    In general, the least value of your pastures should become the winter “sacrifice” pasture, where round bales can be unrolled for cows to eat (what they sleep on becomes soil-building organic matter) and then, while grass comes on in the spring, all the “pugging” of a wet pasture is contained in one field.

Plan on seeding summer annuals into the winter sacrifice pasture.    You may need to disc it over to smooth off all the pugging holes, but that makes a seed bed for sudangrass, sorghum- sudan crosses, or millet that (if seeded by early June) will be big enough to feed all your cattle during the heat of the summer when grass slows into near-dormancy growth (this will be very much a problem with this year’s dry spring conditions).    

As soon as soil is firm, move cattle into better pastures.     In fact, your smallest or irregular-shaped pastures need the cattle first, and here is why:   bigger pastures (rectangular shaped) can be bale harvest most easily.     With the weather conditions prevailing this spring, grass hay could have been cut by the 15^th of May.      By now they would have a good second growth and offer some early summer grazing before the summer annuals would be needed.

It is unsound harvesting to cut your alfalfa first.    Even the newest grasses will still push heads two weeks ahead of alfalfa first-buds.     Of you leave grass fields to bale last, you not only will sacrifice much of the protein content into the seed head, the plant may go dormant for most of the rest of the season.

Properly rotated vegetative grass may provide you six grazing passes per season per pasture.   This is twice the potential feed you are likely to harvest from a three-cutting hay making system.     It is our alfalfa-based approaches to hay making that are causing us to undervalue and underuse the fertility capability of a rotated, fertilized pasture system.

Unless you grow alfalfa to resell to dairy herds, do not worry about cutting it full bloom.    Early cut alfalfa is just too low in digestible fiber to be an optimal beef cow feed.    “Rocket fuel alfalfa” in a beef system is only of incremental benefit in feeding out finishing steers.    Grass is truly a more balanced forage feed than alfalfa, which grew to prominence only because when in combination with high energy corn it could appear to be a “balanced” ration on chemical tests.

The most profit in a beef cow-calf herd is to fully utilize the rumen.    Cattle raised on forages will develop a full digestive capacity from that forage, and with appropriate genetic selection on your cow genetics you can get growth, milk production for calves, and nice body conditioning without the need for a third to half the ration being corn and oilseed based.    Beef phenotypes should be selected for the ability to finish by age, not on weight gain from grain.   

Feed twice as many cows on the same acreage

 From the October December 2018 Beef Newsletter

What this really means is—double the forage production on the number of acres of pasture you have right now.     It does not mean buying supplements all summer and hay all winter which is in part a result of mediocre grass yields from permanent pasture.   

 

Pasturing  is not automatically  Grazing

 

In dairy, the difference between a productive conventional (confinement housing and stored feed supply) and a profitable grass dairy (seasonal grazing with harvested forage needed in winter) is one less acre per cow.     Grazing is optimized when you utilize cows as haybines (moving from field to field as each “cutting” is harvested, with a rest period in between to regrow the forage—just as you manage alfalfa fields) rather than just turning them loose to wander the entire area.

 

Dairymen quit pasturing because they perceived they grew more feed per acre with row crops, and the negativity toward pasturage spilled over to become a negativity toward grass.  This is in spite of forage test data indicating vegetative high energy grasses can produce 4000 pounds milk per ton—higher than either alfalfa haylage, dry hay, or corn silage.

 

For those who learned to rotate pastures as “fields”, allowing the grass some rest time (just like you manage an alfalfa field) – productivity could be sustained and seedings remained perennial.

 Most people that pasture think rotation of paddocks too time consuming.   The result is a waste  of productivity as well as forfeited feed quality.   Grazing rotationally solves those losses.  

 

The science of grass as a plant  (it is different from alfalfa)

 

Grass, small grains, and corn are all variants of the same zhea plant species.     They all grow from a root mass, they all go through a vegetative stage with a goal of pushing out a seed head, and once the seed head is fully formed, the stalk and leaves dry up.    Energy captured during growth (from the sun primarily) gets concentrated in the seed head at plant maturity, but until then, is basically stored in the cellulosic (plant fiber) structures of stalk and leaf.    All of them are highly responsive to nitrogen, and all are dependent on finding water and minerals within their root zone.   They tolerate a wider range of soil pH.    Rumens were designed for grasses.   

 

Visualize the grass plant below the ground level

 

Corn breeders like to show off root balls from hybrid varieties, to demonstrate how important a good root system is to crop yield.    A corn plant grows mostly undisturbed until the seed head matures and then you harvest.   You can predict your yield from the rainfall patterns along the growing season and the days of sunlight.    

 

 When it comes to managing grass pastures however, we need to perceive pasture as a “field” growing a “crop” and harvest it as “cuttings” (like hay) – and there is no doubt that rotated pastures produce at least twice as much feed as open pastures where animals wander about.    There is an easy explanation of this; when you harvest your crop, the roots die.   Eat the grass too low, and you have more dying roots than new shoots.   The pasture withers.    Leaves must remain for photosynthetic capture of sunlight energy and roots must absorb rainfall.

 

COMPARING  ROOT  RETENTION   (NRCS simulations from digging up plants) 

 

Grazed to 6” and rested              Grazed to 4” before rest               Continuous pasturage

 

Alfalfa  [not a grass, but a legume]  has a tap root or branch root system that feeds a crown, from which forage stems grow.   You cut the stems every 28-35 days but the crown still lives, so sends up new stems for the next harvest.    (Of course we also rarely cut alfalfa below 4 inches, so it should be no surprise grasses would need similar care).    For grasses, each blade of grass has a corresponding root; when that blade is cut, the root may die; what insures it will die is when the grass blade is cut below the flag leaf as it can no longer do photosynthesis to regrow.

 

With continuous overgrazing, the most palatable grass gets exterminated (eaten too close to the ground) and future growth that season is inhibited.    It is not the fault of your seeding or of grass as a forage plant.    (If you cut the top off a green corn plant, would it regrow and produce feed?    This is no different— all grasses work the same way.    We must manage for yields.)

 

Rotation grazing is a practice that allows your grass paddocks time to regrow, and that growth becomes exponential when the grass is above 6 inches tall.    If companion clover is also seeded, nitrogen from the clover nodules underground will feed this grass growth, to keep it vigorous.   Cows do like clover, however, so when overgrazed, a pasture will lose its clover (extra source of nitrogen) alongside all the grass it would have “fed”.    Most loss of productivity in a pasture system is a result of the compounded effects of continuous (“over”) grazing.

 

Grass responds to sunlight, rain and nitrogen

 

Lake City Experiment Station has confirmed from recent trials that adding 5-8 pounds of clover seed by frost seeding produces 150-200 pounds of nitrogen annually for the next two years.   In turn, this bumps up forage yields in pastures in the same way it bumps wheat or corn yields.   If we expect to get yield from pasture, we need to feed it like a crop and clover is the cheaper way.

 

Dealing with “summer slump”

 

The best perennial forage grasses are “cool season” varieties.    Grass is the first thing to grow in the spring because it likes cool weather (and has root masses that can tolerate wet soil).     Spring grass is so vigorous that you could rotate back every week and not overgraze.   However, as soon as temps rise to 80 degrees F (and it also quits raining) grass slows down, so your rest periods must go longer.    A small field of summer annuals [eg, Sudangrass] can feed the cattle until fall rains and cooler nights return.    Paddock rotation can provide feed all the way into winter.

Why would a grazier use “aAa” Breeding Guide (Weeks Analysis) ?

 

When “aAa” (Animal Analysis Associates) began in 1950, AI was in its infancy with fresh semen, and the vast majority of dairy (and beef) cattle were eating grass in pastures.    Some got baled hay and corn stover; a few got corn silage, the rest got forage beets and maybe a coffee can of dry grain mix at milking.     The average dairy milked 18 cows, and milk was shipped in cans.

“aAa” began ten years before frozen semen made the genetics horse-race possible, as a system that was based in Bill Weeks’ observations of how physical traits pass between generations. Bill’s genius was to translate biology into a method any cattleman could follow with guidance.  

The obvious success of “aAa” led to breed associations and AI marketing developing their own “mating” services, based on the linear type traits developed for computers in the early 1970s.   Now with herd sizes averaging 50 cows, we all had less time to make these decisions ourselves.    “aAa” held its own against all the new linear and genetic mating, because it still worked.

Ironically, scientific study of the results of linear trait mating could not prove any improvement in dairy herds beyond the differences in sires.   Evaluation is good at telling us the “results” of a mating, but it failed as a “predictor” of how to breed a better herd—in part because measuring the extent of a trait does not recognize the cause of the defective trait expression.     

The industry view is simple.    Whether indexing or crossbreeding, we tend to choose “one size fits all” solutions, as if cows reproduced by cloning.    We forget that two genotypes (cow and bull) combine at each conception, and a unique new genotype will result… Thus no matter how sires are ranked, depending on those numbers alone leads to “single trait selection”, proven as the cause of inbreeding “depression”.     Selection and Mating prove to be separate functions.   

When it comes to grazing and grass dairy, when the cow environment changes daily, that need for physical uniformity requires matings that produce a highly adaptable physique, able to deal with daily and seasonal changes over each cow’s lifetime.    The more physically extreme cows being bred today through “one size fits all” sire indexes do not have that adaptability;  they are designed for a high input, fed TMR in place, year-round barn environment.    For grazing, we go a different direction, adding dimensions that corn-bred TMR cows increasingly lack.

“aAa” Breeding Guide (Weeks Analysis, in Europe) provides the control you need to breed the cow you want, specific to your environment and market opportunities.   Using “aAa” principles today will produce efficient-size cows with optimum forage capacity tomorrow.    It has proven sustainability over multiple generations, avoiding inbreeding depression, as you would expect for a program that thrives (without industry subsidy) 70 years after it was first introduced.

Don’t take my word for it.   Ask around the conference – see what aAa users think.   Then make your own decision.   You may find breeding improvement is easier to manage than you thought.

by Greg Palen                  “aAa” customer since 1978, “aAa” associate/analyzer since 1994.

Is it POUNDS PER COW or is it POUNDS PER ACRE ?

Genetic Evaluation is only thinking “pounds per cow”

If you are milking cows inside a barn all year long, feeding stored fermented feed all year long, and your barn has a limited number of stalls – you likely  are thinking in terms of “pounds per cow”.   

In other words, your dairy design cannot add more cows to generate more income without added facility investment, but if the cows milked more your income would likely be more, and you can always buy extra feed.   Grain is of course the easiest feed to buy for dairy cows, so you feed more of it.

Conventional dairying as above generates more milk because the technology has evolved for decades to support that design—but financial data shows the average of conventional dairies operate on higher costs per cow.

However, if you are grazing …

Seasonal calving to follow the growth of grass species (spring first and fall second, in our climate) can utilize a variable number of cows to harvest the fresh grass, with housing only an issue for winter months.   

In grazing, the focus is “how many acres can I get to grow how much grass (nutrient energy)?”     The key to more income in grazing is in “how much milk per acre will this pasture produce?”    The better grasses produce more milk per acre than traditional row crops, while cows will need less grain.

Sire selection in a grazing environment

Do we really need a “different” cow for grazing than we do in confinement?   Maybe.   Not necessarily.   The only certainty is “higher natural fertility”.

 

Geneticists are getting challenged on this, so the latest fad is “grazing index” which puts more emphasis on fertility and SCS than all other indexes.     

What would ultimately be better, however, is a way to identify genetics with flat lactation curves.    Grass may not support high “peak” yields of ranking genetics, but it will support the full season of productivity you can get from a healthy, naturally fertile, heat resistant, “flat curve” persistent dairy cow.

Breeds originally developed by geographical segregation and fit their region of the world.    All dairy cattle in the USA originated elsewhere in the world, mostly in Northern Europe, and were genetically selected in phases to match the development of our milk markets (fluid volume and butter first, protein products after) AND our feed growing abilities.    Breeds developed on grass alone have different lactation curves from those developed with added feeds. Over time, one size fits all genetic evaluation approaches have diluted breed differences as geneticists focused on the higher input dairy model.

Persistency data from Canada ranks the breeds as follows:  Jersey, Holstein, Guernsey, Brown Swiss, Ayrshire, Shorthorn, Dutch Belted.     Within that data are buried individual sire differences that would help graziers.    If we only select on fertility measures and health traits, we can lose persistency.         

Today there is more difference within (most) breeds in individuals than there is between breeds in overall selection characteristics.

This can be “proven” “scientifically” by realizing that 90% of all bos taurus breeds of cattle have nearly 90% of their genotypes in common.    

The simple point is, good breeding is where you find it when you need it.     The country of origin for the sires you use is not the only determinant of grazing fitness, to the exclusion of everything else we know about genetic selection.    Each new generation may have different mating needs.

If you transitioned conventional AI bred high genetic Holsteins to a grazing environment, it should have been clear that “index rank” under USA genetic evaluations did not fit what you needed.   Instead we just blamed the breed.     Real genetic differences are identified by comparing individuals—and not all USA bred cows were failures at grazing (witness Jersey breed growth).    In “aAa” terms, the “round” cattle in each breed did fine, while the “sharp” cattle in any breed have failed when asked to convert from TMR feeding to grazing.    As your soils develop to produce more grass, and we use higher feed value grasses in more adept rotation, cows more able to milk can also stay healthy and breed back.       

The “balanced” physique (between “sharp” milk characteristics and “round” health characteristics) is going to always be the most productive, no matter whether it is grazing season or winter barn season, no matter what breed(s).   

The industry’s fixation on “genetic ranking” obscures this basic truth.

Summer Annuals can make up for winter-kill alfalfa

From the Summer 2014 Dairy Route newsletter

You have completed your first cutting of hay.   You can tell that the residual alfalfa is too thin to leave the stand for another year.   In fact, you would like more feed off that acreage this year.    One option:

Interseed a summer annual—for example, BMR-6 Sudangrass (OR) Dwarf BMR-6 Sorghum Sudan

Seeded at half their normal rate, these will grow with what is left of your alfalfa, and you can expect two full cuttings reclaiming your expected yields for the season, that can be either windrow chopped or baled as you would have harvested your alfalfa.

Note once this stuff canopies, it not only provides weed control but will stunt off the remaining alfalfa.   Thus, at the end of the season, you could plant a fall cover crop to harvest in the spring for early forage (allowing interseeding of a new alfalfa crop) or used as plowdown “free nitrogen” for a corn crop next season.    

Unlike Grandpa’s sorghum sudangrass hybrids, thes BMR 6 varieties are “dairy quality”feed—plus they use ½ the nitrogen and water of a late corn crop to produce dry matter tonnage equal to alfalfas.

TAURUS SERVICE  JOINT MARKETING  WITH  SEXING TECHNOLOGIES  

A new development finds Taurus Service “Affiliated Sires” working with Sexing Technologies (the company that provides semen sexing for all the AI systems) to bring both selected Taurus sires and an equal selection of Trans World Genetics sires to the AI market in “sexed” straws, at competing prices.

Ask us for the full list.    We are stocking a limited number of the sires but will order any you wish.

GRAZING CORN that can be baled – the small herd silage substitute

Masters Choice seed corn, in its continuing focus on feeding quality corn varieties, has developed a corn variety that is focused on the grazing management cattle farm--  where the higher feed tonnage per acre of which corn is capable, can be combined with a simpler grazing and baling harvesting option.

“Master Graze” is a multistalk corn that will provide a regrowth of tillers from the root base after the first cutting is grazed or harvested.     Silage baler operators indicate it is easier than baling Sorghum Sudan, as it dries a bit quicker (requires less wilt time), and its feeding value is at silage energy levels but with good grass protein levels, and is almost totally digestible.

We intend to try some at our farm this year, after a success feeding Summer Dream (BMR Sorghum Sudan) in balage form as a silage substitute through this winter season.     After the first cut, we intend to interseed some fast emerging annuals to add tonnage to the second cutting.     

These options can work well for the smaller operator, who depends on custom silage harvesting, but who is already set up (or needs an excuse to get set up) for silage baling and wrapping.     You will not have to fear running out of forage, as is often the case with a dry hay forage system in a drought year.

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.

MSU Ag Expo, look for the Byron Seeds exhibit

Gerry Davis, regional fieldman, will be on hand all week.    I (Greg Palen) may not be, due to commitment as a senior “aAa” Breeding Guide analyzer to review bulls in Canadian AI studs that same week.   Dean  Wittenbach or Gene Van Rhee, however, may be there one of the days in my place. Get your seed questions answered here.

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.