Is you Lucerne still growing in the dry weather?

[Pilatus]

As above.
How do you graze it without incurring in bloat?
Do you graze it and use it for forage ?
Have you grown an area of it for many years?
Do you by any chance grow cocksfoot as well which copes a bit better with drought although not that palatable?

 

[sjt01]

Yes, still growing well including the field drilled this spring, surprised to see that it had even germinated. First cut of the 2 year old field is in the clamp, soon be time for second cut. We are still feeding last year's bales to the cows, and the clamp stuff is going into the digester. It is turning out to be very cost effective digester fodder, the lowest cost crop we can grown, but I dare not feed more than a couple of tonnes a day. In the dairy ration it is mixed with maize and grass silage, safe from bloat.
We used to grow it in the '50s, for the local crop drying plant. This is now the 8th year we have been growing it for silage, it loves our chalky soil, roots go down and it keeps growing through droughts.
Also, strip tilling maize into lucerne stubble gives a fantastic soil structure; the main downside is trying to kill it off. 2 doses of glyphosate and a post em spray were not enough to eliminate it.

 

[Brisel]

Do you use extra wrap on the bales?

Chicory is also deep rooting.

 

[Pilatus]

Chicory is also deep rooting.

An organic dairy farm at Chedworth ,(very thin Cotswold brash soil) , uses chicory in their herbal ley mixtures with great success.

 

[Andrew]

Ours is very green and still growing, not as fast as sometimes but still growing. First cut was about 3 weeks ago.
Some we drilled in April is growing well too.

Do you use extra wrap on the bales?

6 layers on all squares here, not a problem with stalks, but cut it before it flowers.

 

[sjt01]

Do you use extra wrap on the bales?

Chicory is also deep rooting.

We did use more wrap, but now have enough to clamp instead. We have dropped beet, and gone for lucerne as digester food as well as cow food. Slightly less gas yield than maize, but very much lower cost per acre, and after 6 years a fantastic crop to strip till maize into. We did not feed baled lucerne to the digester as chop length was too great.

 

[Brisel]

Lucerne isn't the quickest plant to establish, being a perennial. How long a ley do you use?

 

[sjt01]

Lucerne isn't the quickest plant to establish, being a perennial. How long a ley do you use?

First field we ran for 5 years, could have been longer. Will try 6 with our established 30 acres. The 15 acres established this spring is doing well despite the drought, we will get one decent cut off it, possibly 2. The established crop we get 4 cuts, 15-18 tonnes / acre at about 33% dry matter, less on the 4th cut as it is hard to get a wilt.

 

[organicguy]

Unfortunately you still need soil, but it will keep going much longer than grass or anything except possibly chicory.
Photos taken 10m apart on our thinnest field which is Cotswold brash running up hill to clay then sand, called Quarry piece!
We usually cut and clamp it when we do all the other silage.late in the season if only lucerne is growing we bale it, before it flowers so not too stemmy. Needs to be nearly hay or it can turn to black mush but is great chopped in a manger to firm the cows up.

 

[DanM]

Unfortunately you still need soil, but it will keep going much longer than grass or anything except possibly chicory.
Photos taken 10m apart on our thinnest field which is Cotswold brash running up hill to clay then sand, called Quarry piece!
We usually cut and clamp it when we do all the other silage.late in the season if only lucerne is growing we bale it, before it flowers so not too stemmy. Needs to be nearly hay or it can turn to black mush but is great chopped in a manger to firm the cows up.

Is that grown organically? Does it perform well in a organic system or are there drawbacks? Do you graze it at all?

 

[organicguy]

Organic, works well on dry ground in rotation opposite red clover. We don,t graze mainly because of the distance from the dairy. I would be nervous about bloat but also the high protein levels. If I did we would pre mow and wilt.
can get weedy, docks will germinate within it as sward gets older but I am sure there are people who manage it better than me.
It has to be looked after carefully but will give enormous yields.

 

[DanM]

Organic, works well on dry ground in rotation opposite red clover. We don,t graze mainly because of the distance from the dairy. I would be nervous about bloat but also the high protein levels. If I did we would pre mow and wilt.
can get weedy, docks will germinate within it as sward gets older but I am sure there are people who manage it better than me.
It has to be looked after carefully but will give enormous yields.

How many years do you leave it down?

 

[David.]

Would lucerne haylage be any good for ewes or finishing lambs?
I saw some on some fairly crap ground on Sunday, and it was a foot tall, and fast approaching it's second cut, and having had no inputs.
It occurred to me that I could find some similar ground quite easily, that has so far only produced half a first cut of second year ryegrass haylage, having had plenty of inputs; and there will probably not be a worthwhile second cut at all.

 

[deleted user 837354]

You can control weeds in lucerneish if you have access to spruce.

If you aren't organic, you can put a modest dose of nitrogen on to it first thing in spring as the soil could be too cold to do much at first.

 

[Global ovine]

If you have an older stand of Lucerne with strong crowns, give the stand a grubbing with fine points (as narrow as you can get) over the winter if the soil is in friable condition. Grub the stand in at least two directions down no deeper than 10 cms. The odd crown will get knocked off, but it doesn't harm the rest.
As a young fella I worked on a farm with Lucerne stands in NZ's Awatere district in Marlborough, the stands given this annual treatment were all over 70 years old and had hay followed by seed harvested. The next generation used spray and grubbing on the same stands for the next 2 decades until converted into a vineyard.

 

[sjt01]

Would lucerne haylage be any good for ewes or finishing lambs?
I saw some on some fairly crap ground on Sunday, and it was a foot tall, and fast approaching it's second cut, and having had no inputs.
It occurred to me that I could find some similar ground quite easily, that has so far only produced half a first cut of second year ryegrass haylage, having had plenty of inputs; and there will probably not be a worthwhile second cut at all.

Haylage would be difficult - once cut you do not want to move it to let the bottom dry, or else you get leaf shatter of the dry stuff and lose all the goodness. If you want it dryer than silage, barn drying is really the only option.

 

[sjt01]

You can control weeds in lucerneish if you have access to spruce.

If you aren't organic, you can put a modest dose of nitrogen on to it first thing in spring as the soil could be too cold to do much at first.

A dose of digestate or slurry works well in Spring, and after each cut

 

[organicguy]

How many years do you leave it down?

4 or 5 years

 

[organicguy]

Haylage would be difficult - once cut you do not want to move it to let the bottom dry, or else you get leaf shatter of the dry stuff and lose all the goodness. If you want it dryer than silage, barn drying is really the only option.

It is ok to turn it in the morning when dew is still on it.
We mow with conditioner which leaves it spread full width, turn first thing day 2, get it crisp in afternoon of day 2 and row up morning of day 3, bale and wrap in yard. great feed.

 

[JD-Kid]

If you have an older stand of Lucerne with strong crowns, give the stand a grubbing with fine points (as narrow as you can get) over the winter if the soil is in friable condition. Grub the stand in at least two directions down no deeper than 10 cms. The odd crown will get knocked off, but it doesn't harm the rest.
As a young fella I worked on a farm with Lucerne stands in NZ's Awatere district in Marlborough, the stands given this annual treatment were all over 70 years old and had hay followed by seed harvested. The next generation used spray and grubbing on the same stands for the next 2 decades until converted into a vineyard.

grandfather used to have lucerne points for grubber would not be much wider. than yer fingers
last place had a few old stands of hunter river lucerne a bit thin in places but still kept plodding along