EASTERN Green Gold Report May 31St

EASTERN Green Gold Report May 31st

Before we get to the Green Gold Report for this week there are a couple items that I would like to cover.

First off I want all of you to note in the list of sponsors that it now includes the Niverville Credit Union. TheNiverville Credit Union is a new sponsor this year and through an error on my part I missed including recognition of their contribution in the previous updates. For this I apologize and I am glad that they are helping to support and fund the Green Gold Program.

The other item is that the Manitoba quarterly newsletter is now available and has been sent out to MFC members. For those of you that aren’t members you can access the newsletter on their website at MFC Newsletter .There are a number of interesting articles in the June newsletter including information on harvesting alfalfa and dealing with saline soils.

If you aren’t a member of the MFC you might want to consider becoming one, if for no other reason than the continuation of the Green Gold program for 2013. There is information in the newsletter on the benefits of supporting the MFC and how for just $50 you can support the forage industry in Manitoba.

Cutting Height

Often I get the question about what height to cut alfalfa. Generally with first cut it is recommended to leave as short a stubble as possible therefore maximizing yield. There is about 250 lbs of forage in every inch of crop. But before you set your cutter bar as low as it will go it is a good idea to walk into your alfalfa field and look closely at the base or crown of the plants. What you are looking for is new shoots that are starting to grow along with the first growth. If you see new this shoots these are the new sets of shoots for the second cut. By cutting off the tips of this new growth you could be delaying second cut by as much as a week.

In the photo below you can see that there is some new growth happening in this field but not very much. If you are seeing a fair amount of this type of growth it is best to raise your cutter bar and leave a bit more stubble. The stubble that you leave behind has a low feed value and is mostly filler.

With what looks like the Alfalfa escaping the frost on the morning of the 30th we have seen a considerable slow-down in the growth of the plant. From Monday to Thursday the crop in the Eastern area has only grown a total of 1”. Looking at the weather information for the area we can see that we have accumulated only 20 GDD’s (Growing Degree Days) which is about 50% of normal. Had we received the normal 40 GDD we would have expected the alfalfa to have grown 2-3” over the 4 day period. The fields in the area are still in the late bud stage one location in the early flower stage. As you can see in the table the NIR readings have for most of the area gone up and across the Eastern area we have an average increase of 9 points in RFV from Monday’s samples. I’ve been doing some checking and it seems that there is the possibility that frost can have an effect on the NDF portion of the forage by lowering it. This is something that we see in the lab analysis where the NDF is 3 pts lower than in the last sample. NDF normally increase as alfalfa matures.

What this doesn’t change is that it is still time to harvest your alfalfa if you are targeting Dairy Quality.

You can also access the reports from the MFC website at Green Gold 2012

Major funding provided by:

Additional Financial Support thanks to the following sponsors:

• Feed-Rite Grunthal
• Northstar Seed Ltd
• Southeastern Farm Equipment,
• Viterra
• Pickseeds
• Central Testing
• Pioneer Hi-Bred Ltd/Marc Hutlet Seeds Ltd
• Niverville Credit Union

For more information contact

John McGregor