Alfalfa
- Thread starter buckdeer1
- Start date
Smallplot
Active Member
I personally don’t care too much for Chicory. Not that it is not a good selection for deer food but it is one of the tougher to kill choices. I battle enough with other tough to control weeds, my thought is why make life even more difficult. The RR makes for easier weed control during the establishment year before the succeeding years with regular mowings the main challenge is grass that can easily be taken care of without harming the Alfalfa.
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Smallplot
Active Member
No stand will last forever and it is good to rotate crops even for deer. Unless someone figures out how to plant and 8 to 12 way mix that contains all perennial plants consisting of a mix of grasses and legumes there should plan on a rotation somewhere in the future.
In someone’s case similar to yours with resistant plants the best method may be to plant 2 times a year and try to break the cycle of resistant plants. Just something for someone else to consider who may read this in the future.
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dogghr
Well-Known Member
My 5 yo alfalfa/clover/chicory plot disagrees with those thots.
swat1018
Well-Known Member
You must have way more talent than me! My alfalfa in mixes always slowly disappears.
Smallplot
Active Member
Over a 5 or 6 year span, alfalfa will dwindle in population. In the Ag world this was addressed by many with a light overseeding of med red clover. This gave the ability to keep up the tonnage and extend the usable life of a stand of alfalfa.
Choice in clover can directly effect the stand of alfalfa. As I have said earlier, White clovers have always taken over rapidly my stands of alfalfa so I never use these. We have used light seedlings of med red which grows well with alfalfa and many other grasses as well. Key here is seeding rates.
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dogghr
Well-Known Member
I agree the white clover does gradually dominate but after 5 years alfalfa is still 30+% of plot which is approx its planting rate initially. If it wasn't for the exclusion cage, I would think the alfalfa wasn't much there as the deer browse it really heavy. I have to search in the plot but in the exclusion cage which I move about, the chicory, WC, and alfalfa are equal. Maybe the plot is fooling you.
I also overseed with WR in Oct which helps with weed control and continues green feed. Not much worry from me of weeds since I'm not baling for feed or sale. What weed may grow that deer don't like is simply managed timely with mowing, no prob. Now grasses I do spray every couple years with Cleth to control but honestly I don't lose much sleep with grasses either. I mean it is just a deer food plot.
I also overseed with WR in Oct which helps with weed control and continues green feed. Not much worry from me of weeds since I'm not baling for feed or sale. What weed may grow that deer don't like is simply managed timely with mowing, no prob. Now grasses I do spray every couple years with Cleth to control but honestly I don't lose much sleep with grasses either. I mean it is just a deer food plot.
Smallplot
Active Member
Just my experience here, yours sounds different, but it is what it is. Several years ago I had a small area planted in white clover and decided to plant the entire 2 acres in Alfalfa. We sprayed and did conventional tillage before fall planting the Alfalfa. Our heavy disk we always used on our farm even after 10 passes would only scratch the surface since this area was dry and had been in grass for many years. I actually got the neighbor to come in and disk rip the small area. We applied lime and fertilizer and lightly disked that in and the neighbor drilled the Alfalfa with oats as a cover crop for us as my drill was out of commission.
The Alfalfa was looking really good in October and early November that year before it went dormant. The following spring where I had the clover food plot, it choked out my Alfalfa to the point it was a clover patch again. I did not see very much clover during the planting year in these areas but it came back with a vengeance. We had the Alfalfa die out that year and I had to spray with 2-4d the areas with clover before replanting the following spring. The Alfalfa has been going well since then but I still find some clover in these areas. We are harvesting the Alfalfa and when a plant is not wanted, it is a weed.
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Foragefarmer
Active Member
I planted about 14 acres of alfalfa in 2008 and I killed it out in 2015 and planted it back to pasture. In the course of a season it got a nasty dock issue that required a full kill. But man I miss that alfalfa from a deer hunting perspective; I just don't want to deal with the harvest management aspect, so I have been contemplating alfalfa in a creep grazing system for my calves. A couple well placed; within my rotational grazing system, 2ish acre enclosures that my calves would trim and not have to cut and bale it unless I wanted to for some reason.
