Idaho Alfalfa Trial Results Available

It won’t be long now until the phone starts to ring with the question of spring! "What’s the BEST variety of alfalfa to plant?"...........Well the answer to that question is,"It depends."

Alfalfa varieties are now tested for a wide variety of traits from fall dormancy and winter hardiness to resistance to aphids and a host of diseases. Much of this information is available fsor the National Alfalfa & Forage Alliance in a brochure which the update annually. Check it out at http://www.alfalfa.org/publications.html. If you know what kind of pest and disease pressure you have, you will be in a good position to rule out varieties that are not appropriate for your situation.

On the other hand, this won’t tell you what the "best" variety is. The fact is that the 5 or 10 best varieties in trials are often statistically indistinguishable. In addition, slight errors in management or just bad luck on your part, can change this order quite a bit. The net result is that if you select a variety in the top 5-10 in trials that “represents” your environment as much as possible, and you have ruled out the varieties that are already inappropriate because of disease or other issues, you can probably make the variety call based on seed price. (No, this doesn’t mean that “Idaho common” is really an acceptable variety.)

Dr. Glenn Shewmaker has compiled the latest Idaho alfalfa variety trial results, and they can be found at:

http://arcomoore.communityblogs.us/files/2010/03/13_idaho-alfalfa-variety-trials-2009_shew.pdf