The alfalfa is finally greening up enough to do adequate stand assessments in most of the state.

It looks like most of the alfalfa made it through the winter well, except for that in the southern portion of Grant and Lafayette Counties. There are isolated spots of winterkill in other places such as between Sun Prairie and Columbus, in Vernon county, and eastern Green county. I have attached two fact sheets on dealing with alfalfa winterkill for those who need it.

Some alfalfa winterkill occurred in the past 3 months. It occurred largely from frozen crowns and is evidenced by soft mushy taproot just below the crown. Some plants may even begin to greenup and then die. Plants that put out second leaves are likely unaffected. Some of the most common questions arising are covered in this factsheet.

In 2003 and 2004, emergency forage trials were conducted at 5 locations across Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota. This factsheet has the results.

SOURCE: Dr. Dan Undersander, Forage Agronomist, University of Wisconsin