Dr. Dan Understander, extension forage specialist at the University of Wisconsin has done a lot of work on early season evaluation of alfalfa stands for winter kill and disease. He has found that stands with less that 50 stems per square foot can be expected to have reduced yields. While Understand and other have listed 6 plants per square foot as necessary for maximum yield but the stem count seems to work out better, integrating the health of the plants. Glenn Shewmaker, University of Idaho extension forage specialist, feels that one might go down to 3 plants per square foot with slight yield reduction.
Dr. Understand has a video on evaluating plant health at http://youtu.be/hoJUU1rmCko. He also has associated Extension Publications, Alfalfa Stand Assessment : Is it good enough to keep at:
In addition there is a wide variety of UW related alfalfa publications available at:
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