Do any of you guys dig your alfalfa hay

I never heard of this till I came to Northern Utah. Some around here used a field cultivator about now to dig there hay. So I have done mine for a few years as well. Some guys just use a harrow or some other type of equipment. I will try to post a couple pictures and you let me know if I am doing it wrong. I put the real narrow points on my s tine cultivator.

No.

But, many years ago dad said we are working up the alfalfa field this spring. So I drove across it with the disk. This is the very old disk with no wheels, the blades were worn down to 14 or 15 inches.... si I dug across the field one pass, but that was pretty light tillage.

As spring moved on, we kept the field as alfalfa.

That one pass grew in real good again.

Im not sure Id intentionally do it tho. What is it supposed to accomplish? Does it work surface fertilizer down into the roots a bit? Surely it has to kill a few plants, so long term would thin things out.

Paul

what is this procedure for ?, to airate the crop or work it in?

We would lightly run the Vibra shank across bald patches and then hit it with the drill when we were doing the normal grain ground. Would not do the whole field just the rough looking areas. But we also had a five year rotation so it would not be held past the second year anyways.

yes do it every spring, this breaks/splits the crowns of alfalfa and of crested wheat grass we use here in our hay fields, this stimulates growth and spreading,, little known fact is if you plow alfalfa with a moldboard plow the crowns that are buried with regrow another plant along with the original root regrowing,, you have to plow 4-6 deep to do this as if you only go a few inches it will kill the crown root,, but still seldom affects the tap root regrowth,, this is why most who want to get rid of it completely spray it to kill it,, the S-tine unit in the above pic work well for this app,, I use a double heavy chain harrow and work my fields several directions and only do severe tillage every 5 to 10 years as it works well for my area and does not make them as rough and pull out as much grass







This also tears out a bad invasive grass that showed up here about 10 years ago,, bulbous blue grass Horrible stuff for us here that is what is in my hand in the one shot is the new growth of it

An old men I worked for would disc hay just a little shallower than the crown and it would kill the unwanted grass like foxtail

I was always told that the tillage split the crown of the alfalfa plants and would therefore increase the stand. Think of cutting a hedge tree in the pasture. Five trees grow back from the root of the one you cut. It always seems that the best way to improve a stand of alfalfa is to try to kill it.

I have a John Deere Alfalfa Cultivator made in the late 20's.Looks like a spring tooth cultivator. It is 8' wide, 4 sections, has skid shoe on each section and small steel wheels that roll across the ground used as depth control. Concept has been around a long time. Sorry don't have a picture right now.

does not kill the junk I am fighting,, only way i found is to take it out of hay and farm it in grain for three years or more, even then it gets reseeded as the seed blowing in the wind bad,, also buy discing that does kill my crested wheat grass if you get aggressive enough to do any damage to the BB grass, I guess I would be considered old also been farming over 50 years on this ground,, my grandfather came here in 1919

Some of that crap you just cant kill without a crop rotation and maybe some roundup. We have a chemical that we put on that kills grass not alfalfa

back in the early 40s as a kid here in IOWA they would disc after making the hay every time and i di remember very fine looking ALFALFA

Interesting topic. I have never seen this done in my area as we do a lot of rotational cropping and most guys only run three to four years of alfalfa.

I quit using sprays to control weeds over 20 years ago,, I have no need for it,, I do still have to use milestone to control some canada thistle but thats it,, always hated using chemical to control weeds,, I have better yields and less weed pressure today and save up to 5k a year along with it,, I get it for certain crops/areas but I am really glad I do not have to worry about that stuff anymore,, buddy of mine from MI was here a few years back, he walked out in a summer fallow strip and reached down and grabbed a handful of dirt and smelled it,, he smiled from ear to ear,, said he had not smelled earth like that on his farm in over 40 years,, as for spraying this tough weed, a man I have known for 40 plus years who used to be a big dog in the local weed and pest who started his own spraying biz, was just sure he had a fix for it,, he told me what he was trying,, I looked him in the eye and said I wish you luck but it will not work,,, he tried for three years in the end he had even more of the stuff than he had buy doing minimum tillage,, the stuff has so many seeds in the ground spraying just does nothing to slow it own let alone stop it,, it by far is the worst thing I have ever seen here as far as hay fields,, compared to this canada thistle is nothing at all,,