Alfalfa and roundup

[coppertop]

this is one topic I am no expert on but over the years hasn't the east central part of Alberta been called 'short grass country' ?

In this area we have native pastures and tame pastures, fescue seems to be predominant in most of them. I have experimented with some grass mixtures, mainly with the assistance of the local seed dealer.

We got another 6/10 rain this afternoon, so the pastures are still looking fairly good. I wish the fellow across the road would move his cows because they bawl all night long, between that and foxes barking around the property its a fairly noisy night, of course throw in the odd coyote howling as well !!

[smcgrath76]

coppertop, it sure has. a misnomer for northern mixed grass prairie.

[sagewood]

Well that was all very interesting reading and I will check out the infor. on the 'grass' web link.

I personally was forced to break up an old hay field b/c of gophers, badgers, and lack of production. The alfalfa was just dying out, so the first year, I had the neighbor till in more alfalfa...no early rain, but in the fall there were a bazillion little plants emerging. Kept the cows off to give it a chance, but the next year..no production. So I sprayed it with Roundup and zero tilled in oats and barley to give it a rest. Now I had been told this would work wonderfully if we got good rain. Let me tell you that was the year of the 'good rain'...lots and lots of it at the right time in June...the crop that resulted was not worth the time to cut. I baled 40 large bales from it (this is a 174 acre piece) and turned the cows in. This year, I concluded that I had to break it up and seed it to barley. The crop is beautiful and thus, I will probably crop it one more year before putting it back into hay. As Sean said, alfalfa likes to protect its territory and even after spraying it out with Roundup and having the field brown as a bear, last year, by fall there was a lot of new growth alfalfa on the quarter. The roots that remained last year would not allow the water to penetrate and if it did, then the regrowth of the alfalfa attacked the new seeds trying to grow...if my alfalfa had not died out in that field, I probably would have put up with the holes, but the production was so poor that it was not worth moving cutters across it..and further the cost to maintain the cutter after hitting all those dirt mounds and rocks was enormous. So Bruce, if you want to get rid of those holes, etc., go the Roundup route, but then go conventional breaking and reseeding...at least that is my recommendation. Otherwise I expect you will loose a year of production, and add expense with no good result...

[cowman]

sagewood: I have to agree with you. Round it up,work it up and plant barley! Next year plant barley or if you enjoy the adventure canola. One more year of barley with grass/alphalfa underseeded..if that is your desire!
Now I'm no expert on these things but it seems to me that darned alphalfa plant can be a survivor, if it chooses to be!
I believe about a three year rotation lets the root die back and rot properly?
I do note that in the first year, wherever the alphalfa plant was you get an extra shot of N?
I understand your concern with moles, gophers and the end result of BADGERS! Nothing like dropping the haybine wheel into a badger hole!
Still I like badgers...they are tough little buggers...doing their job. I would certainly never shoot one.

[GreenValley]

to use roundup on alfalfa, believe me has to buy fertiziler to add cost bills. And breaking disc doesnt do work well when breaking alfalfa. Last year, after finish baling the last hay production best timing is cut that field first the purpose to plow up, let them grow to about 1 foot tall, and hook up tractor with plowing to plow whole field. In fall, see alfalfa shoot up from ground and worry as wheather should spray with round up. But in spring this year, almost all alfalfa died not much shoot up as root food storage has dried out. Plow turn green manure over, it has advantage over round up, get more bacteria and more orgainic matters, more fertizlier as compare to roundup field. Just my option.