Life Sciences Commons^™

What Leading Alfalfa Growers Do To Produce Quality Hay, Jimmy C. Henning, Garry D. Lacefield, Buddy Sims

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

Alfalfa is the highest quality forage legume crop grown in Kentucky and is the number one cash hay crop. Hay raised by Kentucky farmers has been recognized for its quality at local, state (state fair and Kentucky Alfalfa Conference), and national (American Forage and Grassland Council) hay contests. The testing records of the Kentucky Department of Agriculture also document the high quality alfalfa hay of Kentucky. However, little has been written about the farm practices used to produce high quality alfalfa hay in Kentucky. The current practices of top hay growers may be helpful in defining the options available to …

How To Make Your Alfalfa More Profitable, Clive Holland

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

As a perennial plant, alfalfa can be expected to continue to live and produce for an indefinite period of time. Why then do stands need to be replanted every few years? Is modern seed available today, weakened and unable to live up to the perennial label? What about yield? How does your stand measure up? Are you barely making the state average, or struggling to even meet this modest yield level?

The first harvest each spring can produce over 40% of the yield in a single growing season. Why is a stand slower growing in the spring than you would …

Role Of Alfalfa In Animal Diets, Jennifer L. Garrett

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

Alfalfa forage use has increased in all classes of livestock - dairy, beef, horses, sheep, and swine - during the last 40 years. The highest utilization of alfalfa by livestock is found in dairy cattle diets. Additionally, the use of alfalfa as a grazing crop has also undergone a considerable increase with the use of new grazing management techniques and the development of new grazing varieties.

Alfalfa's strength as a forage crop is its high nutritional value. Alfalfa is higher in protein, minerals, and net energy than grasses and small grains. High quality alfalfa also helps to promote intake, especially …

Saving Those Valuable Leaves During Haymaking, Michael Collins

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

Field dry hay needs to be reduced from near 80% moisture to 20% or less to prevent spoilage during storage. Drying hay to safe baling moistures often takes several days. Sources of loss during forage harvest include mechanical losses such as mowing, conditioning, chopping, raking, packaging and handling as well as respiration and leaching. The general relationship between forage moisture concentration at harvest and losses during the field and storage phases is shown in Figure 1. Harvest losses are greatest for very dry forage and are low for very wet material like direct cut silage. However, the latter is subject …

Alfalfa As A Grazing Crop: Progress Continues, Garry D. Lacefield

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

This makes the third consecutive year that I have talked about "Alfalfa as a Grazing Crop". At our XIII Kentucky Alfalfa, I, along with five other speakers, discussed several aspects of grazing alfalfa and all agreed that the concept had tremendous potential.

This past year I reviewed some of the discussion of our XIII Conference and shared some of the activities going on in research and educational programs throughout the region. In addition, I announced the date for a National Alfalfa Grazing Conference to be held in Nashville, Tennessee. The Conference was held July 29 and was a big success. …

Control Of Johnsongrass And Other Weedy Grasses In Alfalfa, Jonathan D. Green

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

Johnsongrass is considered one of the major weed species that infests alfalfa in Kentucky. Other weedy grasses such as large crabgrass, foxtails, barnyard grass, and fall panicum can also interfere with alfalfa production. Low infestation levels of these grasses may not create significant concern, but high infestation levels can result in reduced yield, alfalfa hay quality, and/or shorten the life of the stand.

Opportunities For No-Till Alfalfa In Kentucky, Jimmy C. Henning, Garry D. Lacefield, Andy Anderson

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

There is a rising interest in the use of alfalfa in pastures, especially for dairy cattle, beef stockers and as supplemental summer grazing for cows with calves. Kentucky has the land resource to support 2 million acres of alfalfa without reducing acres in cultivated crops. Acres of alfalfa seeded for pasture use would be in addition to the 350,000 acres presently used primarily for hay. However, these additional acres are rolling and erodible and therefore alfalfa should be established by no-till methods.

Establishing Alfalfa Following Alfalfa: How Long Do We Wait?, Monroe Rasnake

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

It has long been recommended that alfalfa fields be rotated to another crop such as com for at least one growing season before reestablishing alfalfa. One reason for doing this is that insect and disease levels build up in the old alfalfa and this time is needed to allow them to die out. Another reason is that alfalfa plants have been shown to produce compounds that inhibit the germination and growth of new alfalfa seedlings. This is called autotoxicity or allelopathy.

Recently researchers from other states have indicated that it may not be necessary to have a full growing season …

Foreword [1995], Garry D. Lacefield, Christi L. Forsythe

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

This is the front matter of the proceedings.

Effectiveness Of Vegetative Filter Strips In Controlling Losses Of Surface-Applied Poultry Litter Constituents, Indrajeet Chaubey, Dwayne R. Edwards, Tommy C. Daniel, Philip A. Moore Jr., D. Jeff Nichols

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications

Vegetative filter strips (VFS) have been shown to have high potential for reducing nonpoint source pollution from cultivated agricultural source areas, but information from uncultivated source areas amended with poultry litter is limited. Simulated rainfall was used in analyzing effects of VFS length (0, 3.1, 6.1, 9.2, 15.2, and 21.4 m) on quality of runoff from fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) plots (1.5 x 24.4 m) amended with poultry litter (5 Mg/ha). The VFS reduced mass transport of ammonia-nitrogen (NH₃-N), total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), ortho-phosphorus (PO₄-P), total phosphorus (TP), chemical oxygen demand (COD), and total suspended …

Atrazine And Alachlor Dissipation Rates From Field Experiments, Stephen R. Workman, Andrew D. Ward, Norman R. Fausey, Sue E. Nokes

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications

Chemical transport is being monitored in the root zone of three agricultural management systems at the Ohio Management Systems Evaluation Area (OMSEA). Atrazine and alachlor concentration data from soil cores taken to a depth of 0.9 m and partitioned into the increments of 0.0 to 0.15, 0.15 to 0.3, 0.45 to 0.6, and 0.75 to 0.9 m show the herbicides remained in the top 0.15 m of the profile during the 1991 and 1992 growing seasons. The slow movement of herbicides was partly due to below normal rainfall during the period. Since the herbicides have not been transported out of …

Regional Variation In Temperature Humidity Index For Poultry Housing, Richard S. Gates, Hanzhong Zhang, Donald G. Colliver, Douglas G. Overhults

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications

A building thermal model was used to compute hourly values of temperature humidity index (THI) for a broiler house with and without an evaporative misting system. Hourly summer time weather data for 238 U.S.A. locations covering 30 years were used to develop extreme occurrences of THI. Results were incorporated into a Geographical Information System (GIS) database to create isolines of THI and percentage of hours exceeding a heat stress threshold. Regional variations in misting as a suitable cooling technique are presented in terms of hours reduction in annual heat stress. The technique may be used for assisting in management decisions …