Jeremy,
On my 22 acre farm, I grow about 15 acres of certified organic hay:
Alfalfa, Sweet Yellow Clover, Sweet White Clover, Red Clover, Alsike
Clover, Dutch Clover, Grass. We use it to feed the bees (up to 40
colonies) in our CNG Apiary, so we let it bloom which degrades the
hay value a bit. We do have some damage done by the alfalfa weevil
Hypera postica (Gyllenhal), but not enough damage to reduce the price
we get. Usually our first cutting gets us hay of our poorest cut, and
knocks back the weevils ... they don't seem to do damage in the
summer. And we never cut all the hay at once, so we always have some
forage for the bees. I'm south of you, in Central Indiana. And yeah,
I've got tons of hay for sale. At least here, and for me, my hay crop
is valuable and lush.
At 12:00 AM 10/8/2014, Cusick Farms <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Or to knock the bugs down before weakening the plant by cutting? I'm not
>an alfalfa grower, but the farmers I talk to in the area say you don't get
>much of a crop if you don't spray alfalfa. Sorry not the best evidence,
>anyone care to elaborate?
>
>Jeremy
>West Michigan
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