Garry Lacefield's enthusiasm for alfalfa is unbounded. This Kentucky extension forage agronomist, a well-known, respected authority on the crop, can be heard at many state and national forage conferences. More than that, he's instigated or helped organize so many alfalfa-related events with 20- to nearly 30-year shelf lives that he's earned the title of “Mr. Alfalfa.”

Lacefield will be a primary speaker at the reincarnated National Alfalfa Symposium, hosted by Hay & Forage Grower. It will be held Feb. 4-5 in Kearney, NE, in conjunction with the Mid-America Alfalfa Expo. (See alfalfa symposium.com.)

He's pleased to see alfalfa get the national attention it deserves. Although the crop is the fourth-largest in the U.S., it has, at times, been treated as the ugly stepchild by industry and growers alike. Farmers and seed and chemical representatives know their corn and soybeans, but alfalfa, to many, is simply a rotational crop.

Lacefield has spent 33 years proving it's much, much more.

“I have placed tremendous em-phasis on alfalfa my entire career and have been tremendously rewarded for it,” he says. “I've had opportunities to travel to approximately 40 different countries and, in many, I've been able to see alfalfa play an important role.”

It's certainly been important in Kentucky; alfalfa is historically the highest-yielding, highest-quality forage legume grown in the state. About 270,000 acres of alfalfa or alfalfa-grass mixes are grown each year, according to USDA. The crop is the basis of the state's cash hay industry and an important part of its livestock industry.

The legume continues to amaze Lacefield, especially in a year like the past one.

“It's been my experience that every year when we have a major drought, we come out of that respecting alfalfa more because of its deep root system,” he says.

Lacefield, who has written more than 400 publications, has many times talked about how palatable the crop is and how rich it is in protein, vitamins and minerals. With timely harvest, it's low in fiber and high in energy, he adds.

But when Lacefield started at the University of Kentucky in 1974, he saw that alfalfa's image needed a facelift.

“I teamed with a colleague in doing research on alfalfa,” he recalls. “At that time there was an emphasis on breaking yield barriers. So we put in a study with alfalfa to see, if we gave adequate fertility as well as used good varieties and best management practices, what we could produce.

“In the late '70s we set the high-yield record in Kentucky, which still stands today, of producing over 10 tons of alfalfa dry matter per acre without irrigation,” Lacefield says.

At that time, Kentucky growers averaged only 3.2 tons/acre of alfalfa from stands lasting only three years.

“So the carrot we hung out there was to get off the average and set a goal of 5 tons/acre/year” with five-year stands.

About that same time, Lacefield began field-testing the first power no-till seeder that his Kentucky colleagues had developed. “In the 1980s, we got much more comfortable no-tilling alfalfa and using various combinations of competition control, including chemicals. We're still learning about that. But in this state, an increasing percentage of alfalfa continues to be seeded via no-till techniques.”

Lacefield's open manner and ability to listen has endeared him to colleagues and growers. Early in his career, a grower-friend flatly told Lacefield that other growers weren't seeing the advantages of growing alfalfa. His “mentor and idol,” former University of Kentucky forage specialist Warren Thompson, also helped inspire Lacefield to develop the first Kentucky Alfalfa Conference. Now in its 28^th year, the conference was sponsored by the Certified Alfalfa Seed Council (now known as the National Alfalfa and Forage Alliance).