Mowing Alfalfa (96)

In this week's video, we're cutting two alfalfa fields that we plan to chop into alfalfa silage. This alfalfa will be fed to our cows once it has fermented in a covered pile.
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If you have any questions about this week's video, leave them in the comments, and I will post a Q&A video on Sunday if needed. As always, thanks for watching!
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My name is Piet van Bedaf, together with my wife and my parents, we own and operate a family dairy farm in North Dakota. We are originally from the Netherlands, and immigrated to Canada first and then the United States in 2008. Subscribe and follow along to see the ins and outs of a modern day dairy farm!
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[@user-kf9fv1qj9u]

Great job cutting alfalfa Piet and hired man

[@user-kf9fv1qj9u]

Great video Piet

[@challengermt675c]

Perfect set up Piet. You guys are doing everything right, especially if you’re chopping in a few days!!

[@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047]

Thanks!

[@NextLevelFarmerDotCom]

Great commentary of information shared! Maybe include equipment horsepower or size of equipment used. One Amish farmer cutting alfalfa with a sickle mower said if you crimp alfalfa that plant starts to tie up the digestible nutrients. Pre-crop cut height I have seen videos that show the shorter you cut an alfalfa or grass plant the more it damages its root system. Also, shortcut plants have more difficulty recovering from drought periods. Cutting as high as 3 inches should be experimented with to test the recovery, and yield of the plant possibly shortening the number of days to the next cutting. Consider soil testing your poor stand locations for things like salt, calcium, pH, and other nutrients to help uncover an issue with that part of the field.

[@farmingthemitten4887]

We run 3 Poettinger Novacat S12-351 Alpha Motion Pro triple mowers and they do not have conditioning equipment. We found that we did more crop damage crimping or flailing with our previous equipment. We tried a Krone Big M and like it with the exception of the flail setup that couldn’t be disabled, only slowed down.

[@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047]

Before we purchased this mower I thought about going without conditioners, but I felt we needed to crimp the sorghum sudangrass that we mowed last year. We could take one roll out if we wanted too, or separate the rolls more if we need too.

[@davidkimmel4216]

Another great video. Thank You

[@sjaak3231]

Nice alfalfa. We cut alfalfa at 10 cm tall, du to Rotary raking. Sweeps it nice and clean together that way. Cutting interval just before or at max 10% flowering stage. We are putting it together with grass silage in one silo. So always middling it a bit.

[@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047]

Thank you for sharing your experience!

[@BRPFan]

Another great video Piet!

[@patrickburgmeier7902]

You hit the nail on the head Piet. If you want to bale it dry, crush it good for quick dry down. If you are going to chop it or bale it 15 to 18% and plan on using plenty of preservative, i would crush it a little beter then what you are, but it's not so fussy in my humble opinion. You crush it good and get rain or a heavy dew on it, ain't good either. Because you will leach more nutrients away. Alfalfa don't like wet feet. It's very susceptible to root rot. If water ever stand in a field, it will again and alfalfa won't grow well there, if at all. I'd save the money, and plant a grass that will grow in damp ground. Brome grass will take a little standing water.

[@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047]

Thanks for sharing! Seeding a grass in some of those low areas is probably what we'll end up doing but we wanted to give alfalfa another chance to establish.

[@TheBigdutchster]

Greetings from Holland MI. I've only been to the Mandan/Bismarck area in ND.

[@stevepalmer8285]

Great content 👌 thank you.

[@hrvfarms2556]

Good day , don’t cut lower than ur bottom nodes. Crimping relates to weather and drying speed ? Good luck , Cheers!

[@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047]

Thank you for the input!

[@braedenihrke8056]

We cut right around every 28 days here in SE Minnesota. With the mowers scalping the ground leaving around 7-8cm of stem I’ve always been told when having cutting issues slow down your rpm’s and increase your ground speed

[@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047]

Thanks for sharing your experience!

[@r.scotthill3082]

I think crimping could only hurt if you were knocking leaves off in the process.

[@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047]

Thank you!

[@ursgrossenbacher2796]

We make all haylage I see no reason to crimp over the years just try to have least leaf loss possible.

[@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047]

Thank you!

[@84kspa]

check out Tom Kilcer's work on crimping crops. There are some clips on that on youtube. He claims it's couter productive. Are you going to plant all.of your alfalfa, or.still continue to buy alfalfa from other farms?

[@karlherzog3979]

I was gonna mention the same thing. He also has a video on same day haylage that’s pretty interesting.

[@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047]

Thanks! We are still going to continue buying alfalfa from other farms for the foreseeable future.

[@SkidMarkSmeller]

How long would that take you with a push mower?

[@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047]

A very long time!

[@kencan4772]

To me ND IS NORTH DAKOTA, or is that the Netherlands

[@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047]

We're in North Dakota!

[@donloar6278]

Don't know much about alfalfa. How would you rate your crop?

[@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047]

Overall I'm fairly happy with it so far this year.

[@jerseyscows8553]

Salut, quelle valeur en azote pour la luzerne ?

[@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047]

The crude protein was 19.5.

[@sjaakvanengelen4072]

piet .you need vermeer mower . less hp you need and more trustfull.zet m op