The Book of Alfalfa: History, Cultivation and Merits / Its Uses as a Forage and Fertilizer

by F. D. Coburn

HARVESTING IN HUMID REGIONS

Ordinarily, it is not well to cut alfalfa immediately after a heavy rain, because the wet ground will operate against proper curing. Begin cutting in the morning, when the dew is well off. If the weather is fair, the tedder ought to follow about two hours behind the mower. It is a mistake to think that the sun is the great curing agent. Too long exposure to the sun makes the curing all the more unsatisfactory, besides drying the leaves in such a way that they crumble and drop off.

As long as alfalfa remains “alive” water will be exhaled from the surface of the leaves and be pumped constantly from the stalks in a natural way much as though they were still standing. On the other hand, if newly cut alfalfa is spread too long in hot sunshine, the leaves are scorched to such an extent that transpiration of moisture from pores becomes impossible. Hence, that in the stalks can only escape by simple evaporation, which is very slow. By this means much undesirable, in fact harmful, moisture in the hay is brought to the barn or stack, although the leaves of the hay are dry and crisp.

As J. E. Wing has well said in his bulletin (Bul. No. 129 prepared for the Pennsylvania department of agriculture), “there is a principle to be observed in making alfalfa hay that applies to making hay from all clovers. If it can be so managed that the leaves are not at once burned and dried to powder, the moisture from the stems is the more easily removed. Leaves are natural evaporators of sap; stems are not. Therefore, while the leaf has yet pliancy and some semblance of its natural condition, it is most efficiently carrying away the sap of the stem, but when it is dried up it no longer aids in drying the plant at all. Therefore, the best hay in all respects is made partly in the shade, in loosely turned windrows, or in narrow cocks.”

Two or three hours behind the tedder start the rake and keep it going regardless of the noon hour, and unless the hay is very heavy it may be put into small cocks, this to be completed before the dew forms. In humid regions, hay is cured best and with greatest safety by the use of hay-caps, and these should be put on the cocks also before the dew forms, and removed each morning. The hay may be left in these cocks for four or five days, as found necessary, and then stacked or stored in the barn. This may not follow, however, unless the weather is favorable. Many prefer to leave the hay in the windrows until the second morning, turning them by hand or otherwise before noon and putting into cocks in the afternoon, letting these stand for two or three days. If it is left in the cocks over three days, they should be moved or the plants under them will be smothered. All agree that alfalfa should not lie in the swath over two or three hours. Most who have ever used a tedder like it if the alfalfa is less than half in bloom. If half or more in bloom, the tedder may cause the breaking off and loss of many leaves. Most experiment stations recommend that the hay be put into small cocks on the day of the cutting, if the weather is at all fair, not risking it in the windrows over night. It is a fact that cocked green alfalfa, even without caps, will shed much rain, while when fairly well-cured it will not do so.

A Colorado farmer reported that he started the mower one morning as soon as the dew was off, followed it with the tedder one hour later, and with the rake one hour behind the tedder; he kept a force of men only two hours behind the rake putting the alfalfa, yet quite green, into small cocks. These stood through two days of heavy rain. Later the cocks were opened and found to be unharmed, and after one day the hay was put into stacks in excellent condition. This was a somewhat unusual circumstance, surely, and might not often occur in a climate less dry than that in some parts of Colorado.

A grower in southern Kansas, however, who harvests about one thousand tons of alfalfa per year, and is working with it nearly every day from the second week in May until November 10, insists that alfalfa, under the same conditions of rainfall, is much easier to save in fair feeding condition than red clover. He finds the side-delivery rake especially excellent for turning over the green or wet windrows to the sun and air with the least loss of leaves, and cured thus, after being wet, the natural color is better preserved. “That alfalfa hay has a higher feeding value than almost any other, even when saved under the most unfavorable circumstances, should be impressed upon the inexperienced.”

THE USE OF HAY-CAPS

Any man who goes into the business of raising alfalfa anywhere in the rain belt cannot well afford to ignore hay-caps as a part of his equipment. Comparatively the cost is slight and the trouble of using them small considered in the light of their great utility, although the expense, and the use and care of them may at first blush appear to be quite formidable. American haymakers do not seem to appreciate the bad effect of dew upon the color and aroma of all kinds of hay. Prof. F. H. Storer in his “Agriculture” (Vol. III, p. 559) says: “One advantage gained by the use of hay-caps to protect the cocks during the night, is that they hold in the raked-up warmth, and keep the hay from cooling off. Thus it happens that the hay not only improves a little as to dryness during the night, but is all ready to dry rapidly when the cocks are again exposed to the air and sunshine, on being uncovered in the morning. All this as a normal and constant benefit, to say nothing of the advantages derived from the caps in case light rains, or even heavy rains, should fall before the cocks are again opened. The caps keep dew from settling upon the hay, moreover, and thus prevent the loss of aromatic matters that would result if the dew were to dry off from the hay.”

“With regard to the exclusion of dew, it is not alone its power to carry off aroma that should be considered. When dew ‘falls’ it must tend to carry with it any particles of solid matter that may happen to be in the air from which it is deposited, and, in this way the spores of fungi, such as would cause the hay to mold, are put upon it. It can scarcely be questioned that many of the organisms deposited with the dew are likely to promote hurtful decomposition, especially in case the hay should remain or become damp, and the less of these organisms that infest the hay the better it will be.”