Killing an alfalfa field

[Where_sMyWhite]

@goldenrow

In our area, I usually prescribe a tank mix of RoundUp or anther glyphosate (It’s not glyCOphosphate. Spelling is important in chemistry!) active ingredient product, and Status herbicide or another dicamba salt herbicide.

Sorry… my mistake (I thought I had looked it up properly and have always struggled to remember the name correctly

Yes, spelling is important.

Perhaps also talk to your county agriculture agent about what options, chemical or not, that would work. I’m personally not fond of herbicides but there sometimes limited other options.

Have you googled other potential ways to kill off alfalfa?

Here where I live, alfalfa is watered via irrigation flooding and it seems to do just fine when the field is flooded in water to a couple of inches deep.

[Lmabernathy]

Go ahead and fence it in for your mini and adopt or foster a couple thoroughbreds. It will be down to the bare dirt in a couple months. I am the queen of drylots lol. All you have to do is fence them in, the horses will take care of the rest!

I usually keep 3-5 horses in a half acre paddock to keep it bare dirt, I have several metabolic horses and it is important they get no grass, and most of them are still plump. That will be the most environmentally friendly way to do it, plus the added benefit of helping some other horses for a few months (seriously shouldn’t take longer than 6-12 weeks to get it to bare dirt)

[candyappy]

@Minxitbabe

That’s crazy!! I know they reseed at least every couple years here some do it yearly. Maybe because it’s for dairy cows and they try to keep it as pure as possible?

We sprayed, tilled then planted all our fields in either alfalfa/ orchard grass, alfalfa alone, timothy/ orchard grass/alfalfa . Not one of them has alfalfa now. Orchard grass has held on the longest and there is still some timothy hanging on. Everything is just a “mixed grass” now. At one time the alfalfa was so thick you couldn’t even see the grass until the 2nd & 3rd cuttings.

We have broadcast red clover which went crazy this past fall, so I am looking forward to a decent mix of that since my variety of livestock loves clover mixed in the hay. The clover is a 3 year variety so even that doesn’t hang on.

[goldenrow]

@OnAMission

To my understanding, it’s a rare alfalfa these days that isn’t roundup ready.

Actually, within my territory, only about 10% of the alfalfa grown is RoundUp Ready. This is due to so many beef and equine hay customers, who want a grass mix. The only RR Alfalfa we service, is to dairy farmers, who are looking for a pure alfalfa product to put in their rations.

RR Alfalfa is a very useful tool to them, because dairy rations need to be very precise, and will be re-evaluated for nutrition with each cutting of hay and silage, so they know what nutrients need to be supplemented, to keep the cows as healthy and happy as can be!

[JB]

@goldenrow

RR Alfalfa is a very useful tool to them, because dairy rations need to be very precise, and will be re-evaluated for nutrition with each cutting of hay and silage, so they know what nutrients need to be supplemented, to keep the cows as healthy and happy as can be!

Out of curiosity, what does being RR have to do with their requirements for nutrients?

[goldenrow]

@JB

Out of curiosity, what does being RR have to do with their requirements for nutrients?

Being RR is helpful, because you can eliminate almost all other plants going into the mix. Almost no other grasses or other broadleaves pass through the herbicide. This will reduce the number of noxious or toxic weeds in the hay or haylage.

Also important to dairy farmers is the control of many undesirable broadleaves, which can change the lignin content of the ration. Lignin is indigestible and limits other useful-cell digestibility. Lignin is a component in plant stem production, and can be very high in plants like giant ragweed and woody-like weeds. If these enter the ration, they can nullify some of the usefulness of the rest of the meal.

Conventional alfalfa (meaning non-RR) is more likely to have volunteer weeds, as most broadleaf herbicides are non-selective, meaning if they will kill black nightshade (very toxic to horses) it will also kill some of your alfalfa, which then opens the crop canopy for new weeds to grow.

Most RR Alfalfa is only sprayed with glyphosate (aka RoundUp) one time - and that is when the alfalfa and the initial weeds are 3-4 inches tall. After that, the alfalfa has usually taken over, and provided enough cover, that other weeds don’t germinate. If there are weeds that germinate, a good alfalfa stand will out perform (since they are more established), and choke them out. However, it can be used in “rescue” situations, such as excess rainfall preventing timely hay cuttings, and new germination flushes.

Also, in some RR Alfalfa planting situations, the use of glyphosate means that direct no-till seeding (not disturbing the soil) can be used, because any existing weeds can be exterminated in one spray pass. This means a healthier, more productive soil, with less erosion. It also means that an oat or rye cover crop may not have to be used. On occasion, these small grains can bring in undesirable weed seeds.

Hope that helps! Let me know if you have more questions!

[JB]

Gotcha, thanks - I didn’t think simple enough as just eliminating all other greenery LOL

[Where_sMyWhite]

Since there were two separate posts…

Some food for thought about the use of glyphosate…

[equinelaundry]

Thank you for the replies! It wasn’t reseeded last year so we are going to mow the heck out of it. Fencing was always the plan but out of 5 equines and a donkey I only have one that could graze it.