# Extending and old stand of alfalfa with wheat / teff grass



## adcraig02 (Jan 30, 2017)

Hello. Thank you for openly sharing great advice and stories of past success / failures on here. I can't tell you how many hours I have spent learning.

I have an 18 acre field that has an old stand of alfalfa. The field is laser leveled and flood irrigated. The stand was planted in 2013 and lived through a VERY severe drought for 2 years (2014 and 2015). The stand is good in some places but almost bare in others. I have another field with a brand new stand of roundup ready alfalfa so I don't really need any more alfalfa to sell to my customers - I would rather have some other types of hay. Last year I got 4 cuttings off this field. It made 1.98, 1.08, 1.29 and 0.75 tons / acre for a total of 5.11 tons / acre. Not terrible but the stand really started to thin in the last part of the year. I don't really want to rip up the ground and re-level due to paying off some other ground this year.

I have 2 options running through my head. I am anxious to hear thoughts on either one:

Option 1 - no till drill wheat at 80# / acre into the alfalfa stand in mid-march. Swath and bale the wheat / alfalfa mix around the 5th of June. Once the wheat is off, spray the entire field with round up to kill alfalfa, wheat and weeds. Go in and plant teff grass with either brillion seeder or broadcast spreader / cultipacker. Take 1st cutting of teff around 10th of August. Take second cutting around 15th of September. Let teff grow back until first freeze and then graze cattle and horses. Rip up field in fall, let lay dormant for winter and then laser level and plant teff or alfalfa in 2019 depending on the water year.

I am concerned about this option because I don't know how the teff grass will take in the wheat stubble. There should be very little residue because I will swath and bale the wheat but I am still uncertain. Any stories of past success or failure of planting teff into wheat stubble would be great.

Option 2 - take first crop of alfalfa around the 5th of June. Plant teff grass with brillion seeder or broadcast spreader / cultipacker while alfalfa it short. Take 2nd crop around 10th of July. Teff will be about 35 days old at this time. Take 3rd crop around 20th of August. Take 4th crop around 25th of September. Let teff grow until 1st freeze and then graze cattle and horses. Let lay dormant for winter and then go back with teff grass. Eventually the teff will choke our most of the alfalfa out and I can go back into alfalfa in 2020 or so.

The summers get too hot for orchardgrass / timothy here. I have had really good success with both teff grass and wheat hay on this ground in the past. Any stories of success or failure with this type of operation would be greatly appreciated - specifically planting into wheat stubble and any ground preparation. Thank you!!!


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Craig, sounds to me as if you have a good handle on your situation. I would think that Teff/Alfalfa would be a pretty good mix to sell to the horse/exotic crowd.

Regards, Mike


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

I think the alfalfa would grow to fast and crowd out the teff in option 2. It takes a good two weeks almost before you see anything of the teff and you know how tall alfalfa can grow in two weeks. I've often thought about drilling in teff into a thin alfalfa stand. But where I am the alfalfa grows to much before the chance of freezing goes away enough to plant teff.

Option 1 sounds good, but I would plan to take the teff off around the first of august or 40-45 days after you get it planted. It's really an eyeball test with teff, but every time I grow teff it is ready to cut right at about 40 days or so. Then exactly every 30 after.


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## Fossil02818 (May 31, 2010)

Our climate is much different than yours and our season much shorter. However, I have experimented with no till drilling of different grasses into thinning alfalfa at different seasons over the years and did have some success with a summer planting of Pro-Max BMR Hybrid Sudangrass. This was done for a field that I intended to replant with alfalfa/orchardgrass the following year so I was only looking for warm weather high yield for a couple cuttings.The BMR Sudangrass emerged quickly and competed well with the remaining alfalfa for the balance of the season. I have no experience with teff and never planted the sudangrass again after that.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

I've done Annual ryegrass to fill in thin spots for 1 year.Not as fine as Teff. Pretty cheap also.

To extend farther I've used Annual ryegrass and orchardgrass to get a few more yrs out of it.


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## adcraig02 (Jan 30, 2017)

Thanks for all the posts. I think I am going to try option 1. I didn’t see any reactions saying, “you are an idiot - don’t do it!”. I have thought about ryegrass but it just doesn’t do too well in the heat we have. I think the wheat will up my tonnage about the same way the ryegrass will early in the cooler months.


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