News Update
Aug. 20, 2007

K-State Agronomist Gives Tips for Fall Seeding of Alfalfa

After the problems alfalfa has had in many areas of Kansas this year — including freeze injury, insect infestations, and flooding — many stands were severely damaged or destroyed. It’s time now to start getting ready to establish new stands of alfalfa this fall, according to Kansas State University (K-State) Research and Extension crop production specialist Jim Shroyer. 

“Late summer and early fall are often the best times to plant alfalfa in Kansas, provided there has been enough rainfall,” Shroyer said. “A fall-seeded crop is more productive during the first growing season than a spring-seeded crop. After the first season, however, yield potential is about the same.”

Growers in northwest Kansas can plant as early as Aug. 10-15, he said. Those in southeast Kansas can plant in mid- to late September. In other parts of Kansas, planting time is late August or early September. 

“Producers just need to plant early enough to have three to five trifoliate leaves before the first frost. Alfalfa is a three- to five-year or longer investment. Some producers shy away from alfalfa because of its high establishment cost and risk of stand failure,” the agronomist said.

“In the long run, however, it’s relatively inexpensive, if amortized over the life of the crop,” Shroyer added. “If managed properly and if we have a good year in terms of weather, dryland alfalfa can produce four to six tons of forage per acre per year. Irrigated fields can produce eight to 12 tons per acre per year.”

When planting alfalfa, Shroyer said that producers should keep the following in mind:

• Test the soil. Alfalfa grows best in well-drained soils with a pH of 6.5 to 7.5. If the land needs lime, add it before planting. Apply the needed phosphorus and potassium. Each cutting removes 10 pounds (lb.) of phosphorus (P) per acre for each ton of forage harvested, so it’s an annual input.
  
  
• Plant certified, inoculated seed. Inoculation helps alfalfa seedlings fix available soil nitrogen for optimum production.
  
  
• Plant in firm, moist soil. If possible, prepare the seedbed and plant after a rain. Tilling after a rain will reduce soil moisture. A firm seedbed ensures good seed-soil contact; therefore, use a   press wheel with the drill to firm the soil over the planted seed. Or, consider no-till planting in small-grains stubble — which is a successful alternative and in some areas is the primary mode of planting.
  
  
• Don’t plant too deeply. Plant one-fourth to one-half-inch deep on medium- and fine-textured soils and three-fourths-inch deep on sandy soils. Don’t plant deeper than 10 times the seed diameter.
  
  
• Use the right seeding rate. Plant 8 to12 lb. of seed per acre of dryland in western Kansas, 12 to15 lb. per acre in irrigated medium- to fine-textured soils, 15 to 20 lb. per  acre on irrigated sandy soils, and 12 to 15 lb. per acre of dryland in central and eastern Kansas.
  
  
• Check for herbicide carryover that could damage the new alfalfa crop — especially when planting alfalfa no-till into corn or grain sorghum stubble. In areas where row crops were drought-stressed and removed for silage, that set up a great seedbed for alfalfa, but may still bring a risk of herbicide damage.
  
  
• Choose pest-resistant varieties. Resistance to phytophthora root rot, bacterial wilt, fusarium wilt, verticillium wilt, anthracnose, the pea aphid, and the spotted alfalfa aphid is essential. Some varieties are resistant to even more diseases and insects.

More information about growing alfalfa in Kansas can be found in the annual performance bulletins and the “Alfalfa Production Handbook.”

That information also is available on the web at www.oznet.ksu.edu/news/sty/2007/fall_seeding081607.htm.

— Release provided by K-State Research and Extension.

Protect Silage With Plastic, NU Professor Says

Producers who are chopping or about to chop silage will invest time and money to store good feed for their livestock. However, when as they begin to feed silage, producers may often find that the top couple feet has an off color, smells bad, or has spoiled.

Even after silage has been chopped and piled and packed correctly, it still can be damaged by air and moisture slowly penetrating the outer 3 to 4 feet. In fact, good silage can lose 15% to 20% of its feed value from fermentation and spoilage under normal conditions. This loss can be cut in half, or even less, if covered well by a sheet of plastic, says Bruce Anderson, University of Nebraska (NU) professor of agronomy and horticulture.

Cover freshly chopped silage with black plastic immediately after you finish filling the trench, bunker, or pile, he suggests. Then cover the plastic with something to help hold it down. Old tires often are used because they are readily available and do a good job of keeping the plastic from blowing away. But tires only keep the plastic in direct contact with the silage directly under the tire. In between the tires, air can circulate and cause some spoilage. An even better choice would be a solid cover, Anderson notes, something like freshly chopped forage or weeds or maybe even a 6-inch layer of manure. Then, the entire surface of silage will be fully protected.

— Adapted from a column written by Bruce Anderson, professor of agronomy and horticulture at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and available at http://beef.unl.edu/stories/200708170.shtml.

Teff May Be a Summer Forage Option

The heat of summer often leaves pastures and hayfields floundering and farmers looking for other options for livestock forages. Teff, an African grass, could hold some promise.

Teff is a warm season grass utilized as a grain crop in Africa. It can grow more than 4 feet (ft.) tall and produce more than 6 tons per acre per year. It is a very small, seeded grass relatively easy to establish. Teff also is known as summer love grass or annual love grass.

Tim Phillips, a fescue breeder for the University of Kentucky (UK) College of Agriculture first used it in rotations to suppress weeds where he’d later be planting fescue in the fall. He has also been conducting some research on this grass to determine its worthiness for Kentucky farmers and highlighted some of his findings during a recent UK field day.

“The seeds are really, really small — about 1.3 million per pound. It makes timothy and white clover look big,” he said. “About 100 years ago it began being used as a forage crop in South Africa, so it’s not new as a forage, but it is a somewhat new summer annual forage grass option for us in Kentucky.”

A major threat to the grass is frost, he said. Frost will completely kill it. Seeds must be planted in spring after the risk of frost has passed. It is recommended that about 6 pounds (lb.) of seed per acre be planted into a firm seedbed at a depth of one-eighth to one-quarter of an inch (in.). Sixty pounds of nitrogen should be applied at seeding. The grass does not reseed itself.

With good rainfall and seed distribution, and if it’s not seeded too deep, farmers can expect a good stand. However, if the seed sits there waiting to germinate for too long, weeds may begin to grow reducing the quality of the stand. A good stand will suppress weed growth.

The grass needs to be cut to a 3-4 in. stubble height before it develops seed heads for the best quality. It has good regrowth and typically, it can be cut again within five to seven weeks. Tests have shown the leaf to contain 20% protein and have a 107 relative feed value. The other nutrients elements are similar to timothy, Phillips said.

“You can get multiple cuttings if you don’t wait too long and let it head out. It’s much better than what you see in typical summer annual grasses such as sorghum and Sudan, which are much taller, coarser and thick-stemmed,” he said. “A lot of them are much bigger and take longer to dry. Plus, they take more nitrogen and the forage quality is not as good.”

Typically, a farmer can expect to get two and a half to three tons per acre per cutting if they get 3 in. of rain per month, fertilize it and keep the weeds under control. That could mean 5-7 tons of hay per acre from the annual grass. So far, there have been few disease or insect problems. There are several seed varieties available.

Last summer, they grazed some of it after first cutting it for hay. Phillips said it is important to have a firm seedbed otherwise the cattle can pull it out of the ground. On this trial, heifers grazed it down to stems before moving to a fescue plot, he said.

— Written by Laura Skillman of the UK College of Agriculture, which provided this article.

— compiled by Crystal Albers, associate editor, Angus Productions Inc.