If corn is king, then alfalfa is the queen of forages. Corn silage and alfalfa complement one another well in forage cropping systems for dairy/livestock systems
Along with reduced irrigation water supplies, soil salinity is a major problem facing irrigated agriculture in the western United States, particularly as we confront a warming climate
If you drive through any agriculture-based town and stop into the local coffee shop, I can almost guarantee that there will be at least four or five conversations about the weather
Much gets written and discussed about making high-quality alfalfa. In fact, there could be an entire volume of Encyclopedia Britannica dedicated to the topic. If we were to list the factors involved
If you grow alfalfa, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of Aphanomyces root rot. It’s a disease that has dogged me my entire working career and it can take out a new seeding field in
If ever there was a year that prompted the strong desire to disregard alfalfa autotoxicity and write it off as a bad dream, this is it. The problem: It’s not a bad dream. This spring has provided
It was nearly 10 years ago when I attended an agronomy field day in Arlington, Wis., and heard John Grabber speak about some initial research he was doing that entailed establishing alfalfa under sila
Alfalfa is an important livestock feed, especially for dairy production and horses. Genetically-modified (GMO) resistance to glyphosate herbicide became available to farmers in 2011
The blue alfalfa aphid is again present in many southwestern U.S. alfalfa fields. Growers and pest control advisers were hoping that 2019 would be a break from the annual battles they have been fighting
Name any Upper Midwest state and there’s a good chance widespread alfalfa winterkill is being discussed.Although no year is a good year to be looking at brown alfalfa fields in the spring, the timin
It’s true. When it comes to alfalfa, the holy grail is to achieve high yields, high quality, and a long stand life. The latter is often called persistence.We’ve talked about these production
The California dairy and alfalfa industries have been a largely successful, symbiotic duo for a very long time. However, the days of spreading alfalfa bales along a bunkline and feeding cows grain mix
John GoeserForages bring a variety of different facets to dairy and beef diets. The physically effective fiber and energy values for forages are often the focal point with nutritionists
What was once a minor curiosity has fully emerged as a major market for western U.S. hay products. Who could imagine a hay crop produced in Bakersfield would feed a cow in Beijing or Buraydah?
What agronomic traits might the perfect alfalfa variety possess? The laundry list could get pretty long and may slightly vary between individuals, but I’m sure “high yielding” would
Experiencing the National Alfalfa & Forage Alliance’s (NAFA) Alfalfa Intensive Training Seminar (AITS) is like “drinking out of a fire hose; there is a lot of information in a short period
Low-lignin forages are a hot topic in agriculture. With high digestibility and improved milk yield, it’s easy to understand why BMR (brown midrib) corn hybrids and reduced-lignin alfalfa varieties
Throughout the United States, a lot of alfalfa is grown with grass. This is sometimes done by design, but other times it occurs unintentionally. In some areas, grass is very well adapted
We have all seen the effects that weathering causes when hay is stored outside. Most of the deterioration is on the outer layer of the bale and particularly where it rests on the soil
