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late summer/fall alfalfa cutting in MN

D

Dave from MN

Well-known Member
Any advice on late cutting alfalfa in central MN. Just came back and most is about knee high, not quite ready to flower. When is the latest a person can cut it with out killing/harming it? this will be 3rd crop and I am wondering if I should let it bloom, cut it later, and get more tonnage and not even consider a 4th cutting or cut it soon and try for a 4th, if I would not damage the stand. I want the last cuttings to be the highest protien for feeding feeders from wean to 800-900#
 
Dave here in Iowa we don't like to cut after 9-15.

Thats a little over 2 weeks away.

I would wait 10 to 12 days and make a good third and forget the 4th cutting.

Gary
 
Maybe it's location, but we get cold here. Like 30 below at times, and there is no last cut date. If the alfalfa will make enough bales to be economical, we cut it. I've cut hay in late October. If it were mine, I'd wait a bit, cut it, and then graze whatever grows back. Course we only figure an alfalfa stand will last 5 years anyways.
David
 
I think that the rule of thumb is that in order to be healthy next year it needs two weeks between mowing and first hard frost.
 
Alafalfa sends new shoots out from it;'s root reserves, in middle life the plant sends reserves back down to the roots. For over winter, you want the roots full, so it is bad to cut is so that it just gets the new growth out there as the 1st frost comes.

So.... If you know when it will freeze & stop growing, you can plan for a very late cutting with little harm. But if you get into that growing spurt & then it turns cold, you leave the alfalfa weak.

--->Paul
 
I second what Gary said on cutting date. I don’t seem to get more than three years out of a stand here in NW Iowa. Frost heave in late winter/early spring is too hard on it. Jim
 
I spread manure on my alfalfa after the last cutting and then use my woods mower without changing the highth from mowing lawn and mulch the manure to fine so it does not have clumps that will not rot down. I also mulch in the early spring the manure I spread in the winter before the alfalfa gets a real good start. This is the fifth year since I seeded it and mowing it late and close has not hurt it one bit. I will reseed half next year and the other half the following year if things go as planned.
 
Dave- you know I"m a county west of you, same latitude, just a bit south. If it is ABOUT to flower, it is at the highest protein level- not blooming or flowering- just early bud is the highest range. Wait for more growth, which will be lower quality......NO! You will not get a 4th cutting- first typical killing frost here is in Oct- alf needs about six weeks to recover after a cutting before killing frost, to rejuvenate the roots....store energy for the winter.
 
Jerry- typical here is to plow it down after the 2nd or 3rd year. Winterkill reduces the stand so much that it"s time to re-seed, if you"re going to maintain a profitable level of crowns per square foot. Dairy needs thick stand. Beyond 3 years the grasses take over and reduce the yield too much. We need protein, and grass doesn"t cut it. (Yes, pun intended!). For decades I ran 120 acres straight alfalfa- never seeded a grass mix- 40 acres new alfalfa seeding each year. Expensive, yeah, especially at $5 a pound, but the packer behind the drill reduced the seeding rate from 15 pounds/acre to about 8-10. Guys that run 5-7+ years? Might be fine with beef cows, but not dairy. Making square foot counts of live alfalfa crowns tells the story.
 
We cut ours a little over a week ago and baled it up. That was a 3rd cutting and it was 4 1/2 weeks after 2nd crop. We're planning to cut it again right after a killing frost as it won't grow anymore after that and it won't hurt anything.

We've never been able to get it dried down since we started cutting 4th crop like this, but we chop it and mix it with the corn when we chop it.

Some feilds aren't tall enough to bother cutting so we leave those alone, but they are normally on their way out and will end up being plowed under after 1st crop the next spring or the one after that.

There is a feild right next to my yard that was just cut yesterday by the owner, and they chopped it today. It was already the 4th crop off it, and if enough grows back I'm sure they'll take a 5th. We've got atleast another 3 weeks before we really have a solid chance of a killing frost, but it seems like the killing one had been more into October lately.

Donovan from Wisconsin
 
I guess i can somewhat 3rd what gary said. I've got a stand of alfalfa/broom grass that's in it's 5th year of production. (counting the first year of oats/new crop) It's getting plowed under this fall and put to corn next year. Alfalfa is at it's highest protein level shortley before it blooms and goes down hill fast after it blooms from what i've been told. ive only been able to get 1 year of 4 cuttings in, all the rest only 3 cuttings, hopefully we'll finally get some rain here though and i can cut and bale before i plow it under this fall. Personally i would cut it now, it's going to be an early winter in my book and your farther north than me. best of luck to you
 
Yeah. We gotta have that year rotation though, for a good alfalfa stand. At least here. Plow it out, plant it to corn, wheat, oats for a year, then plant it back to alfalfa the following year.
David
 
I will ad that 9-15 is the cut off here in North east Iowa. I also will say that frost cutting like Don is talking about has some dangers to it. A very good friend is a dairyman. he has about three hundred acres of alfalfa seeded every year. Three years ago we had a hard frost then the weather warmed back up into the 70s for almost two weeks. His alfalfa had grown to about twenty inches high. He waited until the second frost. He cut the hay and chopped it. Every single acre died. It never greened up the next spring. He had to buy all of his hay the next year.

So I never cut a field after 9-15 unless it is getting rotated out the next spring.
 
Here in Southern Michigan we have a cut off date between September 1 and October 15. So after October 15 we can start cutting again.
 
(quoted from post at 18:56:33 08/29/11) Jerry- typical here is to plow it down after the 2nd or 3rd year. Winterkill reduces the stand so much that it"s time to re-seed, if you"re going to maintain a profitable level of crowns per square foot. Dairy needs thick stand. Beyond 3 years the grasses take over and reduce the yield too much. We need protein, and grass doesn"t cut it. (Yes, pun intended!). For decades I ran 120 acres straight alfalfa- never seeded a grass mix- 40 acres new alfalfa seeding each year. Expensive, yeah, especially at $5 a pound, but the packer behind the drill reduced the seeding rate from 15 pounds/acre to about 8-10. Guys that run 5-7+ years? Might be fine with beef cows, but not dairy. Making square foot counts of live alfalfa crowns tells the story.
Click to expand...
o you give it the recommended application of Potash every year?
 
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