|
Joe: This is another one of these subjects that geography will dictate very different solutions for different geographic locations. I farmed in an area where we often saw quite severe winter frost and often without snow cover. As Jimmy King suggested we all know you shouldn't mow alfalfa until 30 days after a killing frost. In my area we also liked to keep that dead growth as it protected the alfalfa roots from frost damage, if we did not have snow cover. That dead growth breaks down but factors like snow cover, changing temps, rainfall, etc. all affect the speed of decay. My situation was such that I was feeding all the alfalfa to a bunch of holsteins, they needed a bit of fibre. In my home turf and climate with sub zero winters, this dead material was never a serious factor. I suspect the further south you are the less this dead material breaks down, thus it could become a serious problem in the first cut hay. I once had a British immigrant farmer buy a farm in my neighbor hood. He was used to winters that hovered around the freezing mark with very little snow. He growled, man did he growl that first winter about our sub zero Canadian winters, and the volumes of snow. By the end of the third year he was telling me how lucky we were to have these severe winters. He said,"It kills pests, kills weeds, decays uncut vegetation much faster, thus recycles it much faster back into the nutrient chain. This is definately one of these questions that requires solutions from very close to home.
| 
