Planting

As you begin to plan and determine goals for the upcoming forage growing season, choosing the right seed, the right forage fertility program and the right cutting schedule for your geography and market is a priority.

In many ways, growing alfalfa is like coaching a football team. Your team might have fantastic potential, but if there is no game plan, and players can’t execute the basics of blocking and tackling, the game can still be lost.

Just as thinning hair is a hazard for humans, a thin alfalfa stand is a common hazard of getting old. But thin alfalfa stands can occur in young stands as well. So what is the wisdom of overseeding alfalfa into alfalfa to improve the stand life and to correct stand deficiencies?

In the field of science, new discoveries are constantly being achieved. The world of knowledge is growing broader, and new fields of study are being undertaken today that were never heard of just a few short years ago.

Genetically engineered reduced-lignin alfalfa has been recognized as offering more flexibility in cutting schedules, helping farmers achieve improved forage quality or greater yield potential when compared to conventional alfalfa varieties at the same stage of maturity.

I’ve told farmers (only partly tongue-in-cheek) that agronomists have job security because once they’ve convinced a fair percentage of their farmer clientele to move in one direction,