The New Grazing/Traffic Tolerant Varieties are Loaded With Benefits

Our original thought when we saw Alfagraze for the first time was, “is this too good to be true”? Do you mean that there really is an alfalfa that can survive under cattle grazing for four years or more? Are the dry weight yields when harvested as hay average or above?  That’s what went through my mind the first time I saw Alfagraze in grazing plots in Eatonton Georgia in the summer of 1990. What Dr. Joe Bouton and associates at the University of Georgia had accomplished was sure to change the way farmers think and grow and use alfalfa. For now we had a trait that would allow growers to use alfalfa for grazing and harvest hay from the same fields without early stand losses.

At last there was an acceptable high yielding legume that would/should grow well with perennial grasses and remain in stands for more than one to two years which had been our experience when growing red clover or white clover with grass for grazing. With time and farm experience, it only stood to reason that growers could now produce higher livestock gains and great milk yields at low costs. The job ahead at that time was to demonstrate this concept to farmers and professionals and see where it would lead.

As we poked through the data from the original studies, we found that when this new alfalfa (later named Alfagraze) was harvested as hay, the yields and feed quality were both substantial. So we at Americas Alfalfa figured we just might be on to a whole new concept that could mean even more to all growers than just grazing. Later that year, we bid for and were awarded the production and marketing rights on Alfagraze by the University of Georgia.

By following the systems used to breed Alfagraze, our Director of Research and plant breeder, Dr. Jim Moutray and his staff set off on a new mission. Their goal was to increase pest resistance, (especially diseases and insects), and improve dormancy to comply more favorably with more regions. A primary goal as always was to increase yields when grazed or harvested as hay or silage, and to further increase grazing tolerance and persistence.

In a little over a decade, they were able to accomplish all of these goals. The first releases were AmeriGraze 401+Z which has a very wide range of adaptation from the mid-south regions to the central mid-western states. Other varieties such as AmeriStand 201+Z for the more northern regions and AmeriGraze 702 for the southern states were added to the variety stable.

In 1998, Jim and the staff of breeders discovered that the lines selected under intense grazing pressure were tolerant of wheel traffic when the alfalfa was harvested for hay or haylage. They also found that the intensive traffic pressure of four or more harvests each year and the use of heavy equipment favored those lines with traffic tolerance in endurance as well as yield.

So now we have an alfalfa of almost unbelievable traits of toughness and yield. The first variety with all of the desired traits to hit the market was AmeriStand 403 T. Since then, the use of this variety by growers all through the humid alfalfa belt has grown by leaps and bounds. You can see for yourself what the data looks like, click onto our website www.americasalfalfa.com. After you see these data and you want to give it a try, get to your distributor or dealer and put you name in the pot. We invite you to keep abreast of our developments for more improving varieties are sure to follow in the years ahead.

AND, it all started with Alfagraze!