This article was originally posted on Field Crop News Written by Joel Bagg
Low forage inventories and increasing risk for alfalfa winterkill makes assessing spring alfalfa health essential.Walking fields early this spring to determine if the alfalfa stand has thinned, and assessing if plants are dead or unhealthy is a proactive strategy to determine management options. Making the decision whether to manage an existing reduced stand or replace it with a new establishment can sometimes be difficult. However, with tight forage inventories there isn’t much room for ignoring the issue until you find yourself with a feed shortage. Don’t wait until it is too late to implement useful options, such as timely reseeding a new stand in the rotation.
Alfalfa Winterkill Risk Factors: Although it is always difficult to predict alfalfa winterkill, there are some risk factors lining up for this spring:
- Alfalfa was stressed in 2013 with low yields.
- There was significant potato leafhopper damage across much of the province.
- Aggressive 4-cut systems are at a higher risk of winterkill and stand thinning than 3-cut systems.
- Significant cutting during the Critical Fall Harvest Period due to forage shortages
- Alfalfa prefers cool, dry fall weather for good winter hardening, but much of Ontario was wet into October and November.
- 2012-13 winter temperature fluctuations, melted snow followed by cold temperatures and some ice sheeting.
- Hopefully, we will not experience late-winter freeze-thaw cycles that can result in alfalfa heaving.
See the rest of this posting from Joel Bagg on the Field Crop News.