Check your alfalfa right now because a lot of fields have had significant spring/winterkill. Fields in eastern Ontario are more affected than those in western Ontario.
The great sap weather during the first days of April lead to significant alfalfa heaving.
When checking fields, consider dead any alfalfa plants that are easily pulled out.
If plants have not started to grow yet they may still be alive.
It is not uncommon to have some alfalfa plants with one to two-inch top growth and other plants with no growth at this time of year.
You may have enough feed in the barn for this year because of great yields last year. You have to think ahead for next year if some of your fields have thinned out this year. For instance, if you take out 25-35 per cent of your alfalfa every year, this fall you may be taking out 50-60 per cent because of winterkill in 2009. Alternatively, you will leave fields this fall that are less than prime and really should be ploughed down.
To avoid this situation check all your alfalfa fields now. Decide if your stands are good enough to keep. If some acres are less than ideal increase your new seeding acreage this spring. If you are trying to thicken up a thinned out stand you can do this by broadcasting five pounds of red clover and two pounds of timothy per acre. This will fill in spots where alfalfa has thinned. The red clover will not be so aggressive as to affect hay quality.
You cannot seed alfalfa into alfalfa because of alleopathy ¬(when the release of chemical compounds from one plant harms another plant) which prevents establishment of new alfalfa. If you have killed out areas that are one quarter to one half of an acre and everything is dead, consider no-tilling a triticale/pea/oats mix to get feed this year. BF