Alfalfa Yield and Quality Relationships Within Individual ...
[Pages:25]Alfalfa Yield and Quality Relationships Within Individual Harvests
Geoff Brink, Marvin Hall, Glenn Shewmaker, Neal Martin, Dan Undersander, and Rick Walgenbach
Our improving knowledge of the relationship between alfalfa yield and alfalfa quality has greatly influenced
when farmers harvest the crop.
10 Cut firJst-ucronp alefaltfaoday
1960
12 Cut firMst-craopyalfaltfoaday
2006
Consider this timeline of how alfalfa harvest management has evolved through the years.
Time frame
1920-1950 1950-1960
1970's 1980's
Farmer's goal
Persistence, yield
Nutrient yield*, persistence
Nutrient yield*
Nutrient concentration**
No. harvests
1 ?2 3 4 4
* Total amount of nutrients harvested ** Favorable percentage of nutrients in the plant
Growth stage at harvest
Full flower
First flower
First flower Bud
Sheaffer, 1990
We know that:
When we give the plant more time to grow before harvesting . . .
. . . yield increases, . . . but at the expense of feed quality.
When we cut the plant early . . . . . . we capture a higher quality feed; . . . but this is at the expense of total yield.
This previous study clearly shows . . .
. . . you get a greater
monetary return (based on crop value) per acre of alfalfa with higher yields.
Undersander, 2001
But yield and quality are opposed:
As yield increases (green bars) . . . . . . quality declines (orange line).
YIeld (T/A)
IVDMD (%)
3.0
quality
70
65
2.0
60
1.0 yield
55
0.0
Vegetative Pre-bud
Bud 1/10
bloomFull
bloomGreen
pod
Stage of growth at plant harvest
Smith, 1960
50
Quality measured as
in-vitro dry matter
digestibility (IVDMD)
Previous studies on the trade-off between yield and quality looked at the crop on an annual basis.
We conducted a study to find out:
1. What is the trade-off between yield and quality during the growing season? Does it vary from one cutting to the next?
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