By Darren Hefty

Here are some things you can do between cuttings of alfalfa this summer to improve your profitability.

Scouting

With alfalfa, you get the chance for multiple harvests each year.  The tough part is mistakes early in the season can cost you all year long.  After all, it is still the same plant that is producing each crop.  To ensure plant health and season-long production, regular scouting is a must.  Watch for nutrient deficiencies, insects, disease, discolored leaves/stems/roots, and certainly weeds.

Weed Control

Is it time to rip up your alfalfa stand?  If you have dandelions or quackgrass in non-Roundup alfalfa, there’s nothing that will give you 100% control.  With most annual weeds, though, you have a few options.  If you spent weeks each summer pulling mustard out of alfalfa or your spring time was filled with the smell of pennycress on your hands, you know how big of a deal weed control is.  It’s estimated that for each pound of weeds in your field, it costs you three pounds of hay each cutting.  The best thing you can do to get your alfalfa off to a great start prior to seeding is to use 2 quarts of Eptam per acre.  Between cuttings, here are your options:

  • Buctril – It’s a contact herbicide (so spray coverage is critical) with no residual that is effective on broadleaf weeds.  If the weather is hot you should not be spraying.  Buctril is best on wild buckwheat and lambsquarters, but it has activity on a number of other broadleaves including mustard and kochia.  Make sure there are at least four trifoliates on the alfalfa before you spray.
  • Pursuit/Raptor – While they are different herbicides, these two are very closely related.  Expect good control of many non-ALS resistant broadleaves and some kick on annual grasses such as the foxtails.  Both Pursuit and Raptor have a decent amount of soil residual to control weeds for a couple weeks after application.  Crop safety is better than Buctril, but you should have at least two trifoliates on the alfalfa before you spray.
  • Butyrac (2,4-DB) – Butyrac is a helper that can be added to one of the above herbicides to add a lot of burn on broadleaf weeds.  We typically only recommend 1 to 2 ounces of Butyrac to minimize crop injury.
  • Select Max/Poast – Grass control herbicides work on annual grasses but can be used at high rates to suppress some of the tough perennial grasses, as well.

Insects

Alfalfa weevil larvae, potato leaf hoppers, aphids, and other bugs can destroy your yields, quality, and re-growth.  Use a sweep net to scout on a weekly basis for insects.  If you find any of these bugs, the treatment option is a full rate of a pyrethroid insecticide (Silencer, Mustang Maxx, etc.) and only costs about $2 per acre.  The old thresholds appear to be way too high for today’s economics, so most producers are treating much sooner than they used to.

Disease

Look at your alfalfa right now.  Chances are some of the leaves at the bottom of the plant are either yellow or falling off.  If so, you’re losing yield and likely quality, too.  Fungicides have become popular for the plant health benefits.  Stopping devastating diseases is another reason.  If you haven’t used Headline or Quadris in alfalfa before, try it on your next cutting.  Wait for 6 to 8 inches of re-growth and spray half the field.  Then scout each week until your next cutting.  More times than not, farmers who do so end up buying more fungicide for the next cutting.

Nutrients

If your soil is short in nutrients, you’re not going to fix big deficiencies in-crop.  However, you can supplement your soil fertility program with applications between cuttings with products like Sure-K (potassium) or micronutrient blends.

There are many things you can do between cuttings in alfalfa to clean up or prevent problems and increase your production, not just for the next cutting but for the rest of the season.