Farm Blog

Hard decision had to be made.  The alfalfa that I planted a few years ago is not performing up to expectation.  My theory on why is that the oats that were planted as a nurse crop with the alfalfa was too heavy, and this stunted the alfalfa.  Even letting the alfalfa go the first year, and not taking a cutting from it, it just never yielded the way it should have.  The second year was great, but after that the yield dropped like a rock.  So about 2/3 of the alfalfa will be taken out and planted to corn to give the field time to let the chemicals that the alfalfa puts into the soil to keep other alfalfa from growing, dissipate.  I'm working with a neighbor to have him do the custom work for me, but wouldn't you know, the temp is supposed to drop to 29 degrees tonight, so trying to kill the alfalfa once it goes dormant might be a problem.  I've had that in the past and don't want to deal with it again.  Weather will rule and we'll just have to wait to see how we'll proceed.