262 Kansas State Board of Agriculture. 



ALFALFA FOR SILAGE. 



By J. B. PITCH, 

 Associate Professor of Dairy Husbandry, Kansas State Agricultural College. 



During normal years the Kansas farmer has but little trouble curing 

 alfalfa hay. The most difficulty is experienced with the first cutting 

 which comes in the spring or early summer, when rains are quite fre- 

 quent. The summer of 1915 was exceptionally wet, and in most sections 

 of the state the first three cuttings of alfalfa were damaged by rains 

 while trying to cure. Thousands of tons of alfalfa rotted in the field, 

 and much of the alfalfa hay that was stacked was of inferior quality. 



During summers like the one we have just experienced, and during 

 wet periods at the time of the first cutting of alfalfa, farmers are at a 

 loss to know what to do with alfalfa that is cut but will not cure. With 

 the quite general adoption of the silo on Kansas farms has come many 

 inquiries and some experiences in making alfalfa into silage. The use 

 of leguminous crops in the silo has been practiced with more or less 

 success in the East, but the best results have been obtained where they 

 were mixed with corn or other carbonaceous plants. The experience at 

 the Kansas Station and of many farmers who have used alfalfa alone as 

 silage seems to point to the fact that alfalfa will not keep in the silo as 

 well nor for as long a time as the more common silage crops. 



When corn, cane, kafir or any like plant is cut and placed in the silo, 

 in the absence of air, the sugars of the plant change to acids, which pre- 

 serve the crop as silage, and it will keep indefinitely. In the case of 

 alfalfa, however, the high per cent of nitrogen in the plant causes other 

 changes, which perhaps check the action of the favorable acids, and the 

 result is more uncertain. 



When alfalfa is run through a cutter and put into a silo it acts, from 

 external appearance, quite similar to the common silage crops. When 

 the silo is opened, however, the results are quite different. The alfalfa 

 changes to a dark-brown color and has a very pungent odor, which is 

 perhaps characteristic of nitrogenous fermentation. Alfalfa silage of 

 this nature is relished by stock, and they do well on it, but they will 

 probably not eat as much of it as they will of corn silage. 



One objection to alfalfa silage for dairy cattle is the strong odor it 

 carries with it, which will make it objectionable to feed in the milking 

 barn. The person who has been accustomed to feeding corn silage will 

 be disappointed with alfalfa as a silage crop, and the same person who 

 has fed good alfalfa hay may be disappointed in the results he gets by 

 using alfalfa for silage. 



But very little work has been done in regard to the feeding value of 

 alfalfa silage. We would expect, however, that it would be less valuable 

 than alfalfa hay, and perhaps less palatable. In the case of poor cur- 

 ing weather at the time of the first cutting of alfalfa, or during sum- 

 mers like the one just experienced, the silo method may prove a means 

 of changing alfalfa that is doomed to rot in the field to good stock feed. 



