planting alfalfa help?

I have been asked to reseed an old hay field to alfalfa. It is now mostly grass and goldenrod. The owner doesn't want corn or beans planted. Is this doable?
Please, no mean arguments. I asked a year ago and I think the post disappeared after a Roundup ready fight started.

Are You No-tilling, or tilling? I prefer to do it the old fashion way...
1) Plow
2) Disk pulling Cultipaker/Clodbuster behind.
3) Broadcast Fertilizer.
4) Disk 2nd time pulling drag harrow behind
5) Broadcast seed
6) Drag harrow.

I don't like planting No-till hay. Ground is left to rough for my blood. But it is doable! If You don't have the equipment then no-till is really the only way top go. USDA does, or did rent smaller drills, or seeders. I forget where it was; but over Christmas I saw a 10 foot JD 750 no-till drill in a USDA parking lot. But they take a lot of HP to pull. About 12 hp/ft (If memory is correct). 120hp for a 10 foot drill. I remember a sales person laughing at me when I asked him about a JD 4430 pulling a 15 footer. That was almost 20 years ago.

I agree with Deere Scotty. I used a old brillion cultimulcher to level out the field. Best stand I ever got was planted with an old wooden ontario drill.

My 4320 (115hp) handles my neighbors 1590 15 no till drill without issue. Another neighbor rented it with a 3020. Did say that it was too much for that. Couldn't pull it up the slightest grade.

You can over work a field, especially light ground. If it gets to light and fluffy, you won't have the best germantion. Definitely go over it with some kind of packer before you seed it to firm it up. If you can find a brillion seeder in the area and pull a cultimulcher hooked to the front of it at the same time, that would be the way to go.

One thing I didn't consider is You don't have to go very deep at all. How about no-till soybeans though? I have never used the 1590; but I know they are similar to the 750. I do remember the salesman saying if planting hay it should use maybe 25% less HP. I rented a 750 15 footer one time; but used a Case-IH 7220 to pull it for soybeans. At 155 PTO HP it seemed to be pretty good load up hills anyway. Of course the tractor by itself weighs about #17,000 lbs with fluid in tires, & duals.

First off take a soil test,alfalfa has some specific requirements.The fact you have Goldenrod in the field in my area would mean you need a lot of lime.If the soil isn't right alfalfa won't grow.

If the field is growing goldenrod it likely needs lime. I'd sure test it anyway. Plow and disc and leave it fallow a year to allow clumps to rot and also for the lime to break down.

After a summer when I went 12 weeks with very little rain, I decided to re-seed over an acre of my yard. I disked with Jubilee. Raked off the old roots, mostly weed roots. Then I used 30 inch rotor tiller on back of John Deere Lawn tractor. Used 3 ft disk and put groves in dirt. Then used grass seeder to first spread fertilizer and lime before I put the seeds down. I then used home made cultipacker. I seeded on election day in November. Really didn't get the rain needed soon enough to germinate many of the seeds. Come spring however, things looked good. In the summer, not enough rain and all my efforts were for nothing. Spent around $500 and yard is back to where it was before I started. I had no way to irrigate.

One time I did all the above at a different yard, planted on Dec 1. Dec 3 it snowed and I got the best yard ever come spring. That yard would have died had I not been able to irrigate in summer.

I know a man who a plot of alfalfa and another with clover for his deer. He did everything right. Everything looked good until he didn't get the rain when needed. If I remember as a kid, dad would plant alfalfa and wheat as a cover crop with a grain drill alfalfa.

I found that packing seeds in dirt is critical. Don't try putting on top of existing ground without preparing the ground. No irrigation lessens the chance they will make it. I've had no luck planting in late spring or summer. Better chance planting in the Fall. Best ever was planting just before it snowed.

Is it well drained? alfalfa doesn't like wet feet. 2x goldenrod = acid soil. Alfalfa needs potash with boron. A good,low cost, source for this is wood ash, if you have a wood fired generating plant nearby. The wood ash will also raise the pH. Fall seedings work better than spring because there is far less competition from weeds. If you must seed in the spring broadcast oats as a nurse crop.

No matter what method you use it will fail if you do not control weeds and that is why many were advising the use of a herbicide before planting. It can be done without herbicide if you first till the land and then use a nurse crop [cover crop] such as oats. Plant the alfalfa with the oats early as possible and after you harvest the oats the alfalfa will be mostly weed free.

This HP needs of a 750-1560-1590 are one of the biggest wives tale crap ever talked about.I started with a Case 830 in 1973 No TIlling and then with a JD 4030 running 5 MPH with 15Ft.750s-1590 until I traded tractors doing Spring Beans,beans in wheat stubble and Wheat after beans in fall.Other then trouble with the crazy wheels in soft(wet)ground never had the first problem.Plus others were doing the same thing with 4010s-4230s-806s-966s.

It seems to pull easier in no till applications. Don't even need the duals. I put an alfalfa field in last summer in worked ground and I had the duals on from working the ground. I think it was good they were on it. Up hills, it never spun out, but without the extra traction it may have.

(reply to post at 09:49:24 01/22/15)

Click to expand...

Was this field an alfalfa field before? There is a such thing as autotoxicity. That happens when you try to follow alfalfa with another alfalfa planting. You might be safe if the field in question as set idle for a long enough period of time.

http://www.uwex.edu/ces/forage/wfc/proceedings2001/understanding_autotoxicity_in_alfalfa.htm

I did get the soil tested. Needs 2.6 tons of lime per acre and some potassium. I didn't check for boron. I have no issue using roundup ready seed except for the cost.

I have one field that is so rocky it's not suitable for row crops, so I've been growing continuous alfalfa/orchard grass. All that limestone grows great alfalfa! When it's re-seeding time I, in late summer, kill everything with Glyphosate and 2-4 D, and re-seed in the spring. I've had no problem with autotoxity doing it this way.

The biggest issue is turning on the ends on a grade. When that dolly wheel buckles over itll sure shove you down the hillside. A 4020 Deere has its wagon loaded with a 10 ft in my country. It'll break traction going up hills when planting wheat or beans.

I'm of the opinion that the horsepower requirements are right on unless you work on flat ground.

WEIGHT is ten times more important then going by HP ratings on a lot of these tools.Same thing as taking(using) a Ranger because it has ???more HP then a 350-550 to do a job.That is my complaint with all these new high HP FWA tractors that don't weigh enough to do the work needed.