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Planting corn into alfalfa stubble

W

Work Hard and Study Hard

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Nov 9, 2006
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Has anyone ever no-tilled corn into alfalfa? I have been told that you can spray roundup (contact herbicide) onto alfalfa one week prior to cutting then harvest alfalfa and plant corn into stubble. It sounds perfect but would like to know from someone who has actually done it.

PS I have the no till ability to plant the corn however I have never killed alfalfa short of a plow.
 
We have killed alfalfa with roundup and 24d then no-tilled winter wheat. Worked great, corn should also work.
 
only time you get a good kill on alfalfa, is when you don't want it to be killed!!!
 
it works pretty good but if your taking a cutting of hayfirst your ground is really gonna be dry,unless of course you have a wet spring,what works the best is if you kill it in the fall and then strip till it,working in the spring really dries it out, around here we also plant a litle earleir corn just in case late summer is dry,alfalfa ground is the first to dry out
 
We did it here in 2001 I think.. Maybe 2002. Round up on the Alfalfa stand and planted right into the stand. Real good corn crop, alfalfa burned off nice, it actually helped "mulch" the soil and it was probably the best corn on the place that year...
 
i wonder what all these hay acres that are being shifted to corn if its goin to affect the hay prices at all? theres alot of people that are breaking up alfalfa or hay ground to put into corn...they can lock in pretty attracting insurance rates on corn
 
IL Rancher said:
It will drive the price of hay up eventually.. Especially if we have a significant drought somewhere..
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crossing my fingers....hoping it ain't a drought here! up up up she goes!!!
 
If it goes up to much, along with grains and the like I have to wonder when the herd liquidations will start.. They have started around in small part just because people are not willing to raise cattle for the .95 a pound they got this fall. They were all for it when they got 20 or 30 more cents a pound but not worth the work with the more expensive feeds and corn is more of a money maker for them this year (some of the marginal ground got planted to wheat however instead of corn)..,, I have 150 acres here in pasture that I was offered some money for to plant corn on.. Told them to talk to me in the fall and we might change our mind (I doubt it but another 30 bucks an acre might make me think again, needs to be enough to replant when teh corn guy goes away, lol).
 
Works pretty well WSSH. The roundup pre-harvest will also dry the alfalfa down a lot faster so you have to watch that so it doesn't get TOO dry before you harvest.
 
We have no tilled roundup ready corn into old pasture and hay ground as part of rotation. Plant right into the green grass and then spray roundup when the corn is up. Makes for a nice clean field and the ground will hold moisture better. Some we choped for corn silage and some was for winter grazing.
 
cowwrangler said:
it works pretty good but if your taking a cutting of hayfirst your ground is really gonna be dry,unless of course you have a wet spring,what works the best is if you kill it in the fall and then strip till it,working in the spring really dries it out, around here we also plant a litle earleir corn just in case late summer is dry,alfalfa ground is the first to dry out
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it's on a pivot
 
oh, no question then i would do it,use some starter when ya plant,then later run some 28% thru the pivot
 
cowwrangler said:
oh, no question then i would do it,use some starter when ya plant,then later run some 28% thru the pivot
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I'm not set up to chemigate (water pressure is very erratic around my area), i will put down starter and then probably side dress if needed.
 
If you are planting into a good stand of alfalfa, you might not need much or any extra nitrogen.

One year, I fall plowed down a heavy stand of alfalfa. In the spring, I sidedressed several different rates of 28%, from 125 units down to 0 units/acre.

I also planted one strip of corn without any starter.

At harvest, there was less than 5 bu/ac. difference in yield across the whole plot. The item of biggest interest was that the strip without starter fertilizer was a point or two higher in moisture, indicating that in that particular year, the starter gave the corn a quicker start in the early part of the year.

The strip with the highest rate of N was the wettest at harvest, with no significant difference in yield (1 -2 bu).

I don't know how no-tilling would affect the rate of release of the nitrogen that the alfalfa fixed. I think it would make a difference toward slowing it down.

That is my experience with utilizing nitrogen following legumes. I now give more credit to legumes preceding corn than I used to. But it is still scary and it's easy to put the N down for insurance. There is no consistant, accurate soil test for N in our cooler soils.

I should add that the field had a history of good cattle manure application, being covered every 2 years at about 12 tonnes per acre.
 
I talked to a co-worker about this scenio just to make sure I was thinking right on ou recomendations. We usually tell customers to spray the roundup about 12-24 hours before mowing. This will let the hay take up all of the roundup and not lose any of the hays value. It will also save moisture for the corn. One thing to watch is for escapes. These can be taken care of when doing your post spray.
 

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