OCR Text |
Show POINTERS FOR DRY SEASON Water Consumption by Alfalfa Can Be Controlled to Some Extent by Grazing and Clipping. The total consumption of water by alfalfa can be controlled to a considerable con-siderable extent by pasturage or frequent fre-quent clipping without serious injury to the plants, according to the United States department of Agriculture. Bulletin Bul-letin No. 223, "Effect of Frequent Cutting Cut-ting on the Water Requirements of Alfalfa and Its Hearing on Pasturage." With a limited amount of . stored moisture in the ground often the greatest amount of alfalfa can be obtained ob-tained by allowing the crop to grow when the water requirement Is the lowest, In the fall or spring, and by keeping the leaf surface at a minimum mini-mum during the summer through clipping or pasturage. The efficacy of thus con erving the moisture during dur-ing the periods of drought has been observed many times. Whenever the moisture supply falls short of the amount necessary to produce pro-duce normal crops throughout the season, sea-son, summer grazing appears to afford a simple and practical means of obtaining ob-taining a return from alfalfa commensurate commen-surate with the available moisture, and at the same time reduces the danger dan-ger of drought injury. When the moisture mois-ture supply is adequate for continuous crop production throughout the season, close pasturage or clipping would result re-sult in a marked reduction in the amount of alfalfa produced, is the opinion expressed in the bulletin. Whan grazing is practiced greater production can be secured by intermittent inter-mittent grazing; that is, by employing several fields which are pastured in rotation. Summer pasturage with alfalfa al-falfa is extensively adopted in Australia, Aus-tralia, and the combined system o"f ,hay and pasturage has found much favor in New South Wales. It is carried car-ried out in the rolling-plains country on loam or sandy soils where there is no possibility of subirrigatlon. |