THE IERIGAT10N AGE. 



(i-lt 



ARID AGRICULTURE 



BY 

 B. C. BUFFUM, M. S. 



Manager of the Wyoming Plant and Seed Breeding Company, 

 Worland. Former Professor of Agriculture in the Uni- 

 versity of Wyoming and the Colorado Agricultural 

 College, and Director of the Wyoming 

 Agricultural Experiment 

 Station. 



PROF. P,. C. BUKFl'M. 



ALFALFA. 



ALFALFA IN WESTERN ARGICULTUKE. 



Alfalfa has been and is the making 

 of the West. No other plant can 

 take its place in arid agriculture. It 

 makes the richest hay and is the best 

 all-round forage; is best adapted to 

 climate and soils ; it solves the prob- 

 lem of soil fertility and maintenance. 

 Alfalfa is not only essential on every 

 irrigated farm, but it is a drouth re- 

 sistant hay crop for the dry farmer. 

 Its value as a stock food has given 

 it fame, not only in the West, but in 

 all parts of the country. Alfalfa is 

 now being brought into almost every state and introduced into 

 every country in the world. Its value has become so well 

 recognized that the demand for alfalfa seed far exceeds the 

 supply. This makes the growing of alfalfa for seed an im- 

 , portant new industry for this region where seed can be suc- 

 cessfully produced. 



ALFALFA SEED CULTURE. 



Up to the present time the production of alfalfa seed has 

 simply been incidental. When alfalfa land has been plowed 

 and put into grain crops the plants which come up from the 

 old crowns produce seed. When the grain is threshed, this 

 seed is separated and saved and has furnished a considerable 

 portion of the supply. Very few have planted alfalfa for the 

 purpose of producing seed. When alfalfa fields get old, run 

 out, and the plants thin so that they do not produce sufficient 

 yield of hay, it is the common practice to leave them for seed. 

 Such fields give yields of from two to seven bushels of seed 

 per acre. Old plants produce small amounts of seed. For 

 large crops young and vigorous plants are necessary. There 

 are three secrets in successful alfalfa seed production. First, 

 isolation of the plant ; second, young and vigorous plants ; 

 third, favorable conditions of growth. 



METHOD OF PLANTING SEED. 



Alfalfa for seed should not be sown as the ordinary hay 

 crop. To secure plants which are far enough apart to make 

 strong, thrifty growth; to secure proper fertilization of the 

 flowers; to prevent crowding; to favor cultivation and irriga- 

 tion, seed should be thinly sown in rows from two and one- 

 half to three and one-half feet apart. The method recom- 

 mended is to take off the shoes or stop up the holes of a 

 drill to make the rows as wide as wanted, and then plant 

 as little seed as possible (two or three pounds per acre). 

 The small amount of seed may be mixed with ashes or soil 

 to help spread it evenly. When the plants come up, if they 

 are too thick in the row, they may be spaced with a hoe, 

 as with sugar beets, or when very small may be harrowed 

 crosswise to take out part of the plants. 



CULTIVATION FOR SEED. 



Where alfalfa seed is raised under dry farming condi- 

 tions, the plants may be cultivated when very small, as arc 

 sugar beets, with a cultivator supplied with "duck feet," or 

 "bull tongues." After the plants are a year old the cultiva- 

 tion may be done with a disc or alfalfa harrow. After the 

 plants begin to produce seed, it will be necessary to cultivate 

 carefully in order to prevent thickening up from the growth 

 of seed which is shattered off the parent plants. Under irriga- 

 tion we would give the same cultivation as for dry farming, 

 and in addition it will be necessary to ditch deeply between 

 the rows. These ditches should be made before the plants 

 get too large. 



IRRIGATION FOR SEED. 



Alfalfa raised for seed production should never be allowed 



to get dry or to suffer for water. The key to the method 

 of raising alfalfa seed is furnished by those plants which 

 grow along ditch banks. Such plants which arc never flood 

 irrigated, which never get dry, which are not crowded, always 

 produce seed abundantly. If the plants get so dry that growth 

 is stopped, an irrigation will start new growth from the 

 crowns, which interferes with or destroys the crop. 



HARVESTING AND THRESHING. 



The problem of harvesting alfalfa seed grown by irriga- 

 tion where the rows are wide and the ditches are deep, has 

 not been worked out. Xo machine has been constructed for 

 this work. It would seem, however, that the crop is suffi- 

 ciently profitable to pay for hand work until such time as 

 invention supplies a better method. The seed should either 

 be placed in bundles or tied and allowed to get thoroughly 

 dry before it is stacked. It should be threshed with the 

 alfalfa huller. An ordinary threshing machine does not do 

 clean work and wastes too much seed. The seed should be 

 stored in a dry place where there is not likely to be great 

 changes in temperature. * 



PROBABLE YIELDS. 



Alfalfa seed grown in culture for this special purpose 

 should produce heavy crops. One crop of twenty-eight bushels 



Turkey Red Winter Wheat, Dry Grown, at Newcastle. Wyoming, 1908. 



of alfalfa seed per acre has been reported; in another authen- 

 ticated case a crop was raised of nineteen and one-half bushels 

 of seed per acre on three acres. These yields show the pos- 

 sibilities of the crop. An average of fifteen to twenty bushels 

 per acre should be secured by correct culture and treatment. 

 With an expense of $20 an acre, the profit ought to be equal 

 to that from the culture of other intensive crops, like sugar 

 beets and potatoes. 



FERTILIZATION OF THE FLOWERS. 



"* It has generally been believed that alfalfa, like other 

 clovers, required the visitation of insects to fertilize the 

 flowers. Failure of the seed crop is often due to lack of 

 proper fertilization. It is known that alfalfa flowers may 

 become fertilized without the agency of insects. Alfalfa 

 flowers are supplied with a little trap, the springing of which 

 insures getting the pollen where it is needed. The honey bee 

 seems to be one of the most important agents for fertilizing 

 alfalfa. Alfalfa is one of the best honey plants known. 

 Every alfalfa seed raiser should keep bees. 



WILL THERE BE A SEED CROP? 



It is impossible to tell early in the spring whether or 

 not a crop of seed will be secured. If the season is very wet 

 and cold and the plants make large, thick growth, it will be 

 better to cut the first crop instead of letting it go to seed. If 

 the blooms are light in color and are few, if the flowers do 

 not fertilize, but fall off, leaving the stems bare; if only 

 one or two weak looking pods are produced in a flower truss 

 and there is a small amount of curl in the pod or only one 

 or two seeds appear in it, the crop had better be cut for hay. 

 Sometimes there is earlv insect injury, as from grasshoppers 

 or early appearance of leaf-spot or other disease which indi- 



