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Fertility And Feeding Value

Categories: ALFALFA

Vivian says that "the problem of the

profitable maintenance of fertility is largely a question of an

economic method of supplying plants with nitrogen." The greatest value

of alfalfa to eastern farming lies in its ability to convert

atmospheric nitrogen into organic nitrogen. It has no equal in this

respect for relatively long crop-rotations, storing in its roots and

successive growths of top far more nitrogen within t
ree or four years

than is possible to any other of our legumes. A good stand of alfalfa,

producing nine crops of hay in the three years following the season of

seeding, will produce from nine to twelve tons of hay. Good fields,

under the best conditions, have produced far more, but the amounts

named are within reach of most growers on land adapted to the plant. A

ton of hay, on the average, contains as much nitrogen as five or six

tons of fresh stable manure. Thus there comes to the farm a great

amount of plant-food, to be given the land in the manure, and in

addition the roots and stubble have stored in the ground enough

nitrogen to feed a successive corn crop, and a small grain crop which

may follow the corn. Moreover, the roots have filled the soil with

organic matter, improving the physical condition of the soil and

subsoil.






Another gain is found in the content of phosphoric acid and potash in

the manure, much of which was drawn from soil supplies out of reach of

the other farm crops. The profit from introduction of alfalfa into a

region's agriculture is very great.



Alfalfa makes a nutritious and palatable feed for livestock. A ton

contains as much digestible protein as 1600 pounds of wheat bran.



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