Preparing The Soil
Category:
ALFALFA
The preparation of the land for alsike clover on
ordinary soils is the same as for medium red clover. (See page 74.)
Usually, that degree of fineness in the pulverization which best
prepares the soil for the nurse crop with which alsike clover is sown,
will also best prepare it for the alsike. But there may be some
instances, as in strong clays, when a fine pulverization that would
suffice for the needs of the nurse crop would be advantageous to the
alsike. This finer pulverization can only be secured by the judicious
use of the roller and the harrow. In loose-lying soils, more especially
in areas where the precipitation in winter comes in the form of snow,
and, therefore, does not wash the land as it does when it falls as rain,
if the land on which alsike is to be sown is plowed in the fall, and
only harrowed in the spring, or cultivated and harrowed when preparing
it, the moisture will be better conserved than if it were plowed in the
spring. When thus managed, strong clays in the area under consideration
will usually have a much finer pulverization than can be obtained from
spring plowing. When the preceding crop has been given clean
cultivation, to plow land subsequently before sowing to alsike would
bring up many weed seeds to the surface, where they would at once begin
to grow. On slough lands, where water saturation is present during a
portion of the year, even to the extent of appearing for a short
interval over more or less of the surface, the seed may be sown without
any previous preparation of the land, and in some instances
successfully. In other instances it will fail should the following
summer prove adverse. The stand is rendered much more certain in such
instances by first burning off the grass, sowing the seed upon it,
covering it more or less with the harrow and running the mower over the
ground, say, twice in the season, to let in sunlight to the young
plants. The grass thus mown may be left as a mulch. Pasturing, but not
too early in the season, will in some instances give results equally
good. In such situations the sowing should be done, and also the
harrowing, before the frost has left the ground, except for a short
distance from the surface, or the horses may sink too deeply when doing
the work. The success is dependent in no small degree on the denseness
or want of denseness of the root growth of the grass plants already
covering the soil. The more dense these are, the less easy is it to
obtain a stand, and the more peaty the soil immediately underneath the
surface, the greater is the danger that the young plants will perish in
a time of drought.
When alsike seed is sown on drained sloughs, the aim should be to reduce
the excess of coarse vegetable matter, if present, and to secure a
smooth surface, such as will facilitate the easy mowing of the crop.
More especially should this be the aim if the alsike is sown to produce
hay. This can be most easily and speedily done by growing on it some
reducing crop, as flax or rape, and then smoothing the surface by
implements best suited to such work, as, for instance, some form of plow
leveler.
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