 Joining us today for this roundtable, we have Dr. Kim Mulanix. She's an Associate Professor and Beef Extension Specialist here in Albert. We have Dr. Leanne Gillard. She's an Assistant Professor and Forge Extension Specialist. Jerry Thompson. He has been an Alabama Extension Animal Science and Forge Regional Extension Agent for around 20 years in the Tennessee Valley region of Alabama. Steve Stroud. He owns and manages poultry and hay operation in Pike County. He's active in the Hay and Forge Committee with the Alabama Farmers Federation and serves as a board member for the Federation. Also Wade Hill. He farms at Lawrence County. He owns and operates head oak farms and is also a district conservationist within RCS. And he breeds high-quality quarter horses and produces high-quality alfalfa hay, primarily marketing to horse owners. So without further ado, let's get started. So today we will be talking about alfalfa. So alfalfa is often referred as the queen of forges due to its high nutritive value. However, its adoption in the South has been limited over the last decades. And perhaps it can be useful to those that are not as familiar with alfalfa production to start talking about its requirements and some of the main challenges we might face here in the South USA. So I'd like to start with one question for Leanne. Leanne, what are the main soil requirements someone should be aware when considering planting alfalfa? So alfalfa, as I always say, it's a queen because it has such high quality, but that also means it's a diva. Because it needs a lot higher requirements than most of the forages that we use in Alabama or in the Southeast. So as with all legumes, it is not tolerant of acidic soils, which most of our soils in Alabama are. So you need to make sure that your pH of your soil is 6.5. So some of our legumes can get away with a little bit lower, but this one in particular is 6.5. On top of that, because it's a deep rooted plant, you also need to make sure your subsoil pH is adequate and at least a 5.5. So this is something we don't typically do. You can contact your local extension agent for information on that. The good thing is since it's a legume, it doesn't need nitrogen per se. Sometimes we might use nitrogen to help it, but typically, you know, in general, it doesn't need nitrogen. It might need some micronutrients like boron. It also will need potassium and phosphorus. So soil testing is very important in order to make sure that you have adequate pH, which can take multiple years to fix. If it's too low, but also make sure that your nutrients are adequate because it is a little expensive to establish. We want to make sure that you do a good job and have everything ready for it to establish well. Okay. Thank you. So moving to talking more about the, we just talked about the great nutritive value that alfalfa has. So, Kim, what are the main benefits of alfalfa inclusion on animal diets and diet and their performance? Thanks for the question. I would say that probably some of the biggest considerations for that from an animal standpoint are improved overall digestibility, as well as crude protein value relative to if we were to look at just our warm season perennial grasses alone, which are typically used for hay production in the state. And so by integrating alfalfa either into those warm season perennial grass systems, or by using alfalfa monocultures alone, we can see improved quality benefits. So from an animal standpoint, that can look a couple of different ways. Generally, we see that they would have improved consumption of a higher quality product. And subsequently, we would hope that that would later be seen and improved animal performance or gain or improve body condition of those animals. Okay. Thank you. Leanne, start talking about the sort of the requirements for the software tillage. And one thing that sometimes can be challenged is establishment, just the variations year by year with rainfall and other other weather related things. So, Jerry, what would be the best practices that can help optimize our changes on getting a good establishment? Okay, thanks for that question. Yeah, so the biggest challenge, I think for most of the livestock producers, hay producers in Alabama is we are not used to working at such high pHs. So we've got to, and it's a slow process to raise pH by applying time and whatnot. So you've got to be pretty far ahead of time to get that pH up to where it needs to be. And so, and I think a psych selection is very challenging. I was thinking about this on the way down this morning that my forages professor back in the early 80s at Auburn, he had the statement that his first choice of where to grow alfalfa would be on deep well-drained soils and his second choice of where to grow it would be on deep well-drained soils. So I think choosing the right place to plant something is just a good challenge also. And then I think, you know, most hay producers, we're not used to dealing with a crop that's a legume. So then with weed control issues, it's not impossible. And there's good resources online here from Dr. Russell about how to do that. But to get the weeds under control ahead of time, that's going to be plaguing you during the time of establishment. I think that's a big challenge and a really important thing to be dealing with. And then I think just the challenge that we're dealing with a new crop. So just the continuing to learn. If somebody's looking to do this, it's different than Bermuda grass or Fescue hay or something like that. So just the need to continually learn and stay up to date on what needs to be done to grow a crop like alfalfa. Okay. So, Wade, how long have you been planting alfalfa? Well, Jerry and I was just talking about that. And I think it's been 17 years. Okay, 17 years. What about you, Shiv? You've been growing alfalfa for a while, right? Yes. I'm on my second year of alfalfa and it's doing quite well. Okay. So, yeah, I wanted to hear more about your experience for both of you, what have been the experience. And it's good that we are going to have a different point of views. You've been doing that for a couple of years and Wade has been almost for two decades so far. What are the main points that you had as a challenge or points that you had as your experience planting alfalfa so far? Okay. I'll go first. Actually, I had a very successful first year of planting. We got a great stand up first year. I did go ahead about a year and a half ahead of time and I applied three tons of high-cow line per acre to get my sole pH up. It was actually around the seven when we planted. But what we did was went in and sprayed a burned-down glyphosate on the Bermuda in early October. And that's when we went in with a no-till drill and planted and got a great stand during that. What about you, Jerry? Well, some of the things that we've ran into here over the past 17 years, you know, to start with, we did not have the access to the roundup ready. So one of the big things was the weed control because you had to start early. Now, I do agree with everything that's been said about the pH in the first place. You definitely got to start ahead of time on that. Picking out that good site, I've even tried a few sites that I thought were iffy. And the majority of the time, if you think they're iffy, walk away, put something else there because it has not worked. Now, since the roundup ready seed has been available, the biggest thing that we've run into getting established is Mother Nature. You know, have I got the right kind of weather to get the ground prepared? I have done some of it no-till, but the majority of our alfalfa is conventional till. Well, you've got to have good weather to get the ground ready, then to get the alfalfa up and get enough growth on it to withstand that first winter. And if somebody's going to do this, I guess my biggest thing is to tell them to be prepared for failure. Because in 17 years, I've had three years that's been failure of planting. And we try to plant a little bit each year because if I get four to five years out of it depending on the site, you're constantly having to re-plant. And we try to space that out where I've got alfalfa. In 17 years, that's worked until this year. And between me making a mistake and Mother Nature hitting me this year, I don't have any alfalfa. First time in 17 years because of failures. But it will happen even if you try to do everything perfectly occasionally. Mother Nature's just not going to play with you. So last year, we had a prolonged drought here in Alabama. That was one of the reasons for the failure that you're talking about. Well, I don't know if it was the drought as much as once it got to where I could plant. I was pushing it at the end of the planting season. I got it planted barely in time. But then when it started raining, I mean it just never let up. So I had excess water and I had a problem with volunteer ryegrass coming up in the field. Since I had plowed that up, stirred the soil, I brought up some seed that was ready to germinate. Well, it was so wet, I was torn in between. Do I take a chance of spraying and making ruts? Or do I wait for it to dry? Well, the next thing I know, here we are in springtime. And by the time it got dry enough to hold my rig up to spray, well, it was too late. So between the excess water and the competition from the volunteer ryegrass, I think I've lost a whole lot of what I planted. Now we've got it cut right now, fixing to start baling any minute now. Still hoping to have some to come back through that. Jerry and I spotted a little bit. Whether it's going to be enough to be a viable stand is still yet to be determined. So I think you mentioned during your talk that you had some stands that were good for four to five years, right? Yes. Okay, that's really good. And so just going back to you again. What would be the potential yield to be expected or even a number of harvest per season when you're cutting for hay? So I'm going to give you the typical extension answer and that is it depends. So a lot of that's going to obviously, first of all, depend on your fertility. So whether you're grazing or hay, we suggest for alfalfa doing soul tests every year to make sure you're on top of your soul fertility. And that's the number one thing that's going to end up limiting your yield production. Another thing that's going to make it depend as whether or not you are doing a monoculture, or as Dr. Mollinix mentioned, you can intercede it in metagrass. So when you intercede it, you're going to see differences in yield. Now your overall hay yield will be much greater because you're taking the benefit of having both alfalfa and bermudagrass, but you're going to slightly compromise the alfalfa and the bermudagrass yield a little bit. In a monoculture, and I'm going to throw a number out there and I'm probably going to see, I'm staring right at Dr. Bouton. So, screen, so from what I've seen in general, we can get about five to eight tons of dry matter in the southeast. On average, I'm going to say, again, that's going to be done a lot of factors. I'm sure there are scenarios where people have seen more and plenty of scenarios where people have seen less. But on average, we can see that. In terms of cuttings, you can get a couple of cuttings in the spring, as well as several in the fall. Again, depending on whether you're interceding it or doing a monoculture. But we're going to say it's going to be, you know, four to five cuttings a year. In the alfalfa bermudagrass system, you can do eight of the total system while that wouldn't be all alfalfa. That would be bermudagrass as well. But in that system, they've seen in Georgia that they can get eight or nine cuttings a year. So there's lots of factors that are going to determine the yield of alfalfa. Okay. Just before I move to to receives and weights experience on that, I just want to go to your Kim. Harvest timing is very important. So what, what, can you tell us a little bit about what is the criteria to decide when harvesting alfalfa? Right. So I would say that the harvest criteria is dependent on, first of all, the age of the stand. So if it's a newly established stand, and we're looking for criteria for that first harvest. Generally, we would like for that alfalfa to be at least 10% bloom, perhaps past that up to even 25% bloom before we would get that first harvest. So while we would potentially have some compromise in terms of the alfalfa quality at those later stages of maturity, what we're doing is we're setting that plan up for success because we're allowing the root system of the alfalfa to be very well established and have a good reserve to then carry us through the subsequent harvest of the season. Now in subsequent years, once the alfalfa is more readily established, we would shoot for that about 10% bloom threshold to be able to harvest going forward. Okay. So just going to Stephen Wade and feel free to start whichever of you want to start. So what has been your experience regarding number of cuttings per year production? Well, I've actually had the alfalfa Bermuda mix. So last year, my first year I was able to harvest seven cuttings. The first three cuttings were predominantly all alfalfa, and then from there on it was a good mix. So excellent yields, I was pleased with it, and quality as well too. So on our test, we usually average around 23% crude protein on our forage analysis. And your first cutting was in April, right, Sue? Yes. I cut it on April 1st, and then I cut it this past Saturday on May the 9th for the second cutting. I've already got it in the barn as well. Okay. What about you, Wade? Well, I'm a little further north than Stevie, so I don't get cut near as early as he does because of the weather. But usually the end of April 1st of May is our first cutting. You know, and the number of cuttings we get a year is all dependent on what kind of summer we have for this rainfall. I've had a few years to where three cuttings was all we got, period. And then I cut it six times up here. Now, mine is a monoculture. Somewhere around that fourth or fifth year, once it starts kind of playing out, I will drill some orchard grass in it and have a mix that way for maybe a year or so. As far as tons per acre, you know, that year that I cut it three times, it was pretty low. I have had as much as nine tons per acre at the end of the year. But now that was a year when everything worked perfect. You know, as those saying those, you could close your eyes and throw the basketball from half court and it went in. That was one of them years. It doesn't happen that often. Okay. So, just, just going back to the end on the same talk about, hey, how, what, what are the main recommendations that we can use to improve, hey, college, when harvesting or fall from. So the first thing is going back to what I said about the maturity, any forage maturity is the number one thing. So making sure that you can get in the field at the right maturity but not pushing the plants to fall and finding that optimization between yield and quality. Beyond that, alfalfa is very sensitive to overworking. So if you are when you cut it. If it gets too dry and you, you tell it or rake it you're going to get a lot of leaf loss and all the good quality. You treat nutrients are in these. So you want to make sure that if you are working that you work it as little as possible. If you do need to tell it if you need to increase your drawing great. You can also we suggest using a mower conditioner. So that you increase the drawing great and don't have to work it quite as much. Those come now as a combination. So you want to do a A crusher. So it uses rubber pads you don't want to use the V shaped kind of strips the leaves that we normally would see with a grass conditioner. So once you have a mode and conditioned it and let it dry if you do need to tell it do it preferably in the morning when that is still a little damp. You don't want to do it, like I said when it's too dry. Also, when you bail it for hey, you know, make sure that when you're raking it up, it has enough moisture. Let it finish drying in the windrow. More information on those specific numbers can be found in the description that I did. You can watch that and I have those specific moisture contents. I can't remember them exactly off the top of my head that you don't want to. But once you break it into a windrow, let it finish curing at that point and then bail it to minimize leaf loss. And that's really what our goal is also story inside. This is a very high quality, very costly, hey product storing it outside is just going to diminish that the quality tremendously. So this is definitely the type of product you want to be storing inside, instead of having outside storage. Okay, so I want to hear in just one can just question can be for Jerry Wade and see why what have been your experience with that regarding diseases and pasts. Okay, so I asked Wade about that a little bit. And I'll let him answer, but he indicates that there's been a time or two and because of from an stimulating circumstances, a few years ago, had a little problem with blister beetles and it's just a time when the rain just wouldn't let him get to it was way way more blooms than we would ordinarily think this it was impossible to get a cut, but what you addressed that how much how much is that pressure and disease pressure that you normally deal with. Very, very little. I mean enough, or it's not even enough to count that one time in 17 years I've had the problem with blister beetles. Other than that, sometimes I have a few of the I'll file the weevils. One time I had the army worms actually got in and I had to spray it, but that's in 17 years. That's the only time I've had any trouble with any kind of handset, or I've never noticed any kind of disease trouble here. Now, I do rotate my, you know, once I go through that four to five years with it and then I converted over to the orchard, I may let it be straight orchard for a year or two, and how about somewhere else. And then I come back, and I think that has helped a lot. Okay. Well, my phone in South Alabama. It was I last year that my first year of alpha alpha. I was after the before the first cutting alpha alpha we will just hit me hard and I was wondering where they came from because there's never been any alpha alpha in my area. And we had to spray for those last year, but this year I haven't seen any, any sign. As far as blister beetle we haven't seen any sign of that as well. So I've been able to, other than the alpha weevil that's only on pressure I've had for men say, Sure. Okay. And for, for you, Steven, wait, what, what have been the main, I don't know, actually wait, have you, have you done hay for only grasses before either Bermuda or grass before planting of alpha. Yes, before I started. It was all grass. Okay, so I want to, I want to hear, I know she has planted, has planted Bermuda grass before as well. So I want to hear what have been the main management strategies, and even like the level of management that you notice it's different when dealing with alpha versus a grass system. Well, the biggest thing that I've noticed is, you know, when alpha needs something, whether it needs spraying for weeds, whether it needs the first place and whether it needs cutting for hay. When it needs it, if you think about it twice a year late, where you can debate on it a day or two on what to do, and it not hurt your quality as much. But with alpha, when it needs something, you need to be able to drop everything else and go 10 to your alpha. Okay. Yeah, I agree. The biggest difference I see as far as dry hay, grass hay, and alfalfa, you know, in the past, when we cut just Bermuda grass, we'd go out there and cut it. The next day we'd go out there and tether it. The next day we would rake it and bail it. Well, alfalfa is completely different. We're mowing with a mower conditioner. I do not tether mine. I usually wait. Sometimes I'll rake the next day after cutting. Sometimes I'll wait until the second day, but I'll go in and rake it early in the mornings. And I've actually, I've always used a wheel rake in the past, what I call a V rake. Well, now I've got a rotary rake because it does a much better job of when row is dry. But yeah, we go ahead and rake it and we might bail it that day and we may have to wait till the next day. It all depends on moisture. And once I've had to add a applicator to apply an inoculant as I bail because I'm bailing, you know, anywhere from 18 to 22% moisture a lot of times and you have to have that inoculant to keep it from heating up on you. Sure. It's the act when you talk about raking it. You know, grass hay, you rake it anytime of the day. What we have done in the past with our alfalfa is, you know, if we cut it this morning, tomorrow night, as everything starts going back and get to case getting a little sticky, we rake ours at night. Then the next day, we opt out and as soon as it gets dry enough that morning, mid morning for lunch, we've got a baler running. So, you know, with grass hay, we never have raking away at night. Okay. So, so we, we mentioned a little bit about Jesus already. And we can have alfalfa mixed with other other stands. So, with other grasses stands. So, currently, we here in Albert and in Georgia, we are conducting research on alfalfa bermuda grass mixtures. And, Kim, would you like to tell us a little bit more about the projects that you're working on? Sure. So, a lot of the conversation we're having today is has stemmed from several different things, some ongoing demonstration work in surrounding states, but one thing in particular is related to a research project that we're working on in collaboration with University of Georgia. Dr. Jennifer Tucker, I believe is on the call with us and she's the lead on this project, as well as the University of Florida. And we're looking at just evaluating management recommendations for alfalfa bermuda grass mixtures. So, the purpose of that project is to identify appropriate harvest heights, as well as harvest frequencies of that mixture that allow us to optimize yield quality and persistence of that mixture over time. So, our hope from that initial work then is that we can ultimately apply that information in both hay systems, but then move on and evaluate this work under a grazing setting as well. I also see we have Dr. Bouton on with us. Dr. Bouton is known for his work associated with breeding a lot of the alfalfa varieties that are adapted to the southeastern U.S. And so while we may have more familiarity with those hay management aspects of those systems, really a lot of this ongoing work that we're working on is to move us towards developing grazing recommendations for those mixtures as well. Okay, thank you. So, and this question can be again for Jerry, Wade, and Shiv. So, just for producers that are listening right now and they might start thinking about starting planting alfalfa monoculture or mixing with other grasses. So, what are the steps you would recommend them to consider if they plant alfalfa in this fall, for example? Well, if they're planning on doing a mix with Bermuda, I would definitely recommend not spraying any grazing on next, any chemical with any type of residual to be extra careful with that. Go ahead and pick out their spot now, soil test and start working on that pH getting it up. But other than that, just site selection is key and watch your chemicals. Okay. Yeah, just to share with residual herb sites is very problematic with alfalfa. So, it's important to hear what Shiv said about the ones at the herb sites that you should be careful when planning to use them. What about you, Wade? Well, if, you know, and I'm speaking from a monoculture standpoint, if I want to plant something this fall, I've usually already got my site picked out and got a plan in my head. I ain't going to say I've got it written down on paper, but of what I'm going to do last fall. But starting right now, I would start with weed management if I hadn't already. You know, and with us doing the majority of our conventional teal this time of the year, I'm starting to break ground right now for this fall planning because I want to get it tore up and make sure I've got everything smooth, weed control handled by the time fall gets here. And sometimes that's tough to do if you wait till now the start for this fall planning. Okay. Okay, thank you. So, do you both, Wade and Shiv, do you have more people around you planting alfalfa right now and which type of systems? Monoculture or mix? I've had a couple of, if you want to call them neighbors within 30, 40 miles that I know of that planted some in the past that's a monoculture. One of them planted it one time, he cut it for a few years and he quit. The other one I think has been a little bit more persistent at trying it, but I haven't talked to him in a year or so so I don't know if he's still doing it now. But other than them two, I do not know of any in my area. Yes, I've only got one neighbor that has actually planted some of this past fall, he and I ordered our seed together and he's actually doing a grazing system on it. I haven't had a chance to visit with him to see how I think I know he got a good stand but other than that I'm not sure about his results on his grazing so far. But he's the only one I know of there's a couple guys that plant some actually for food plots for for deer hunting but other than that I don't know anybody with with a grazing or a hay production system in my area. Okay, thank you. So I just just going for the questions now and I see we have a couple of them but if anybody else went to to to ask something please just type on the chat box below here. We have one question from Anthony. Have you been a problem in establishing our power for you. Stephen, I don't know any anybody actually on the run table that would like to answer. Well, you know as I stated earlier in 17 years we've had three failures. You know part of that I can attribute to my mistake of not being able to say no, don't plant this year because you know it was dry till it got late and I didn't want to put the seed in the ground without any moisture. Every time I got moisture with seed in the ground, I mean I got a great stand, but it froze out because it did not have time to get the needed growth or winter setting. This past year was all the rain and then the volunteer ryegrass hitting me, you know, I'm considering it a failure right now. Yes, I've had trouble, but then I've had out of them 17 years I've had 14 years to everything work great and I got a good stand. So from that standpoint I don't look at it as any different than if I was planting corn or soybeans or wheat. Sometimes it's just not going to work the way you want it to. But actually, Anthony was asking if you had issues with deer coming to eat the alfalfa growing, because I know some places, for example, in Florida, we have issues with, we used to have issues with deer coming to lagoon plots. So did you, I don't know how big of a issue a deer are here in Alabama. Did you have any? No, ma'am, and I'm sorry for misunderstanding. Oh, don't worry, no worry, not a problem. But in my area we have quite a few deer coming in, but I've never had a problem with them bothering my alfalfa. I would expect that if I was in a highly populated deer area that I could have. I know they love it in a deer plot, but I just don't have enough in my area for that to be a factor. Sure. I've seen deer in mind, but I've never noticed a lot of damage. Now I will say mine is planted out in the opening. There's not a tree line within, you know, several hundred yards from my field. So other than just seeing a few out browsing just every now and then, never seen much damage. Okay, so we have a second question about pH. So Lee Gilmore says that my pH went from 6.7 last spring to 5.9 this spring. Got a decent first cutting of about one ton per acre two weeks ago. Should I apply lime after my next cutting or wait to just fall? Who would like to answer that? Liani, I'll take a stab at it and there may be a difference of opinion, but in my opinion, being that it takes lime several months to be effective, I would say the sooner you can get it out would be better. Obviously, we need rainfall to get it incorporated and rainfalls will become more unpredictable as we go through the next few months, but at least it would be there when the rain was there. Because if you wait till the fall, then really the lime won't be effective till in the spring or in the winter to the spring. So I would say the sooner that you could get that out would be the better. Okay. Anybody else would like to say anything? Well, wait to say that he agrees. And I do too. I've kind of got a saying that I have. It's not necessarily just about alfalfa, but about timing of lime. And one of my, is it's going to work till you put it out there. And you know, and it's always going to be slow. So the sooner you can get it out there, the sooner you're going to start seeing results. So in the case of this question, I just can't foresee anything, any reason I would say, because his pH fell pretty, pretty abruptly. I want to start trying to fix that as soon as I could. And, you know, today would be a good day. Okay. Thank you. So we just got another question here from Jack from UF. So now Obama, what are some of the benefits of choosing to grow alfalfa compared to other legumes options? Did you have a she even waved or whoever went to address this question? Did you have experience with other legumes before? You know, I have planted a little clover for hay. And I've planted the, what I call the hay beans. The soy beans is the hay variety. But you know, without, it's even a better quality. And it lasts for three or four years. If I go out and plant crimson clover and I pick for hay, then I've got to replant again this next year. And I get more tonnage and better quality out of alfalfa. And I think along, you know, Wade's primary reason he grows alfalfa is to sell horse hay to horse owners. And so there's a tremendous name recognition and respect for alfalfa hay. And then a lot of horse owners right or wrong object to the idea of clover because of the slobbers that can come along with some varieties of clovers at some times. And so from Wade's perspective, he was advertising grass they would clover in it. Probably a lot of customers would not be terribly interested in that. But with his customers demand for specifically for alfalfa that's only met by growing alfalfa. Don't need it by growing something else. And it's a high cost to produce crop. But it's also a real high value crop. And so, Wade, we were talking about some digress that is harsh. But you know, the cost is the same, grow a lot up there and grow a little. And so you want to grow something that can be very productive and very well received by your customers. I would just say to follow up on that, I agree with Wade and Jerry, especially from the aspect of looking at alfalfa as a monoculture legume option. When we think about integrating alfalfa into Bermuda grass systems specifically, that's kind of a unique fit for legumes in our state because we historically don't have a lot of legume options that will grow well with warm season perennial grasses. So we have white clover and red clover. You may see some carryover of those into our warm season months early in the summer, but they tend to play out. Whereas the alfalfa and Bermuda grass mixture is a bit more consistent and it's persistent throughout the summer growing season. So I think that's kind of a unique opportunity for that warm season forage legume need or time period that we have in there. Okay. And I would like to ask if anybody has any questions. I saw somebody raising their hand, but I couldn't see who was it. Just not in proper time to amute the person. So if anybody has any questions, please just type them or raise your hand again. Yeah, so one question that I would like everybody on the table to share your thoughts is, do you think alfalfa can be profitable in the Southeast USA? I'm going to experience definitely if managed correctly. I agree. There is demand in the Southeast for sure. That in my area, I'm in a rural part of the state. I'm not seeing a whole lot of demand from the horse on our side, but as far as beef producers, I'm seeing a lot of interest. They're wanting to add it in with some feed to get that close to the mixture. And there is definitely demand there on that side. And so yeah, I deal with the horse clientele quite a bit up here in North Alabama. There's a lot of horses, you know, and there's certainly a demand for it and an unmet demand. Wade pretty much has his customer base set. I mean, he struggles to meet the needs of his established customers. So we have a lot of horse owners that are bringing it in from here, whether that's Tennessee, Kentucky, up in Illinois, or West of here. So there's obviously based on that more demand than there is supply, which is a great recipe for being profitable in something when the demand outstrips the supply. To follow up with what Jerry said, and I think the beef and horse markets are really important, but while the Alabama does not have a huge dairy industry for producers that are within a reasonable distance of the state line, be it, you know, South Georgia or Mississippi, the dairy industry is also an excellent place to market this hay. I think it is profitable for the elite few that are intensive and management I would say for the average farmer though I would take caution and using it. And, and just as I have the good forge economists I have extension specialist I have to give the disclaimer of. I think, you know, Wade talked about, you know, he has different sections he plants every year and thinking about doing it in a stepwise fashion and see if it works for your system. And if you can make it work then there are definitely opportunities to market it and be profitable be it dairy or horse. I think one thing that everybody has brought up is related to management, and that being so key in terms of the economic success of alfalfa. One of the resources that we've produced out of some of this work is an economic decision tool, Chris prevent from Florida has a budget tool that you can download and it's an Excel based file that you can go through and put in your input cost associated with the system, and it will project based on your operation whether or not this may be a potential fit or not so that resource is available for download on the southeast cattle advisor.com website and I'll type that into the chat box here if anybody wants to go look at that later. Thank you Kim. So we have one more question here Dr. Solemberger from UF is asking when preparing to plant alfalfa into Bermuda grass, what rate of life is it that you're using the fall to set back the Bermuda grass. I cut it the first year we planted on October the 17th I think it was and I waited late that year to cut it so I only had about one to two inches of stubble height left and just as soon as it greened up, I went in and sprayed it with about anywhere from 15 to 20 ounces of ground up I think that that range you'll be fine. You're not going to kill Bermuda with ground up I've tried and tried and I've never been successful with that so you just want to stunt that Bermuda for a period of time and get those seed in the ground and you should be fine. Yeah, and he also asked about the Bermuda grass stubble height that you prefer at time of planting alfalfa in the fall. The lower the bag, that's for sure because you want to be able to get that no-till drill and get that seed to ground contact. Now you don't want to plant those seeds too deep. You want them very shallow but the less competition with the stubble height you have out there the better chance of getting a solid stand for sure. Okay, so why I don't know if anybody else has any questions so why we wait to see if anybody is going to type or ask something else. Kim, we just released a survey on challenges of alfalfa adoption today so would you like to talk a little bit on for the last few minutes about that? Sure, kind of as a follow up to the round table discussion today for everybody who's registered for the round table will be sending out a link related to your perception about alfalfa use in the southeast. And the purpose of that survey is really just to help us identify what are potential limitations for why a producer may or may not consider incorporating alfalfa into their operation. And through that we're hoping that information can help us form new extension programs around this topic as well as help inform the research that we're continuing to do on this topic. And so in that survey link will be coming out later today so you may see that and if you're interested in willing to participate we would certainly encourage you to do so. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions? So Lou, the other question that came to me by text that Wade don't even know that the text came in but. Sure. The text wanted me to ask Wade does he use any kind of preservatives or spray on as Steve mentioned he was just doing something because he fails it with a fairly high moisture content. Do you do that? I do not and I think I mean you and I have discussed this and that was one thing I wanted to say to anybody that's thinking of this in the future. When I started this 17 years ago this was before most of y'all's time with extension except Jerry and he can attest to this. Him and Dr. Ball probably got tired of hearing their phone marine from me calling them but I got awesome information and guidance from extension. And there was a lot of things that was new and we said well here's what we think let's try this direction. There's a few of them didn't work like we did but we got there and it was because of all of that. Now when you get back to the preservative and I told Jerry this morning I do not like to lay down a bunch of acres of alfalfa at one time. You know I like them five acres box I will do 10. But then when I get out there that day Bailey the first third of whatever I'm bailing I'm on pins and needles thinking am I here too quick it's just a tad on the sticky side. The middle third of that field man I'm smiling this is perfect the last third I'm sitting here scratching my head I should have done had this bail that's getting a little dry on me. So I do not use a preservatives but I try to do small plots at a time to where I can bail it at that optimum moisture not to lose them valuable leaves. So we got another thank you thank you wait so we got another question and Jay is asking almost everything I've seen with mixture mixture stands is with Bermuda grass. We have a few pastures of mostly faster. Are there any grasses you would not recommend proceeding with alfalfa from from I don't know like from what I'm seeing. Usually it's mostly about the space between rows that we are generally concerned but I don't know if either of you have any any grasses in mind that will not go well with alfalfa. Really honey I think there that's a good point about the row spacing and and I saw Kim just unmute herself so I'll let her talk a little bit more about the row spacing. But specifically I mean you see a lot and I think way kind of alluded to this earlier about orchard grass mixtures as you go through and you know you get towards the end of the life of the alfalfa you're going to have grasses come in. I would say with fescue to me it's not worth it to do with Kentucky 31. I it's to me that's kind of counterproductive to put a Kentucky 31 toxic in the fight tall fescue with alfalfa with a novel in the fights that would be an excellent choice similar to orchard grass. But you're going to be a little bit more diligent about making sure the alfalfa doesn't out compete. So I think that there are options. The hair grass is another one of those the quality to me just isn't high enough to really benefit the alfalfa, which is why we stick with tip to 85 and other Bermuda grasses. There are a higher quality and digestibility, but there are some challenges so now I guess I'll turn it over to Kim to talk about some of the challenges of interceding. Right, so kind of following along with what Leigh Ann had said, I think that she's right that if we just kind of reframe that question and think about the success stories of these mixtures of grasses with alfalfa. There has been quite a bit of extensive research done on tall fescue and alfalfa mixtures, as well as orchard grass and alfalfa mixtures so I think those are an option. The more recent work in the southeast has been with the Bermuda grass and alfalfa and that's where the kind of the row spacing that they were talking about comes in. So in that particular mixture oftentimes we're looking at 14 to 15 inch row spacing between the alfalfa rows is just dependent upon your particular equipment and kind of the drill setting or the spacing that can be accommodated by that equipment. Also, you can intercede alfalfa into bahia grass. Mississippi State has done some work with that. It does appear that it's less persistent in the bahia grass systems compared with if you were looking at a Bermuda grass alfalfa mixture. Okay, thank you. So I think we have one question. Jeff, I'm sorry if I'm pronouncing your name wrong, but I'm going to a mature. Yes, I was wondering, Wade talked about the moisture content. What if you could pick the perfect moisture content to bail? Where is that? Where do you feel is too high and too low? A million dollar question. And I didn't want to ask an easy question now. Well, say I do not use a moisture meter. I have in the past, I use my hands and I fill up the hay. And it's just experiences the way we run. I can go out there and check several spots in that windrow and just by the feel of it, I can say yes, I can get by or no, I can't. 99% of the time I can do it with my hands. So to put a number on that, I actually can't do that. And I know that didn't help you out at all. But Jeff, I don't have Wade's experience with it, but in reading about it, it's about the same moisture content as putting up good quality grass. You know, you can put it up a little higher moisture in square bales and you can and round well are the big square bales. But it's not, it's not significantly different than your experience with grass on the moisture content. Okay. Yeah, and we kind of have a another question the same line, asking if you have to do bailage with the first cutting due to other issues so I don't know if she had issues as much as on the north region of Alabama. Regarding rain. So, well, last year, our first cutting we did put up in bailage but as far as this year, I don't know if y'all remember but we had some almost 90 degree days in March, and the week that I cut it on April the first had excellent weather and I was able to get it down to dry enough to where I could actually around build it but I had that moisture down to around the 20% mark. So I built it use it as dry hay. Okay. This was an unusual year as far as warm weather in March and April. So I would say typically you probably need to put that first cutting up. And wrap it moisture. Sure. I never have put any alfalfa as a you know we have other species but not alfalfa. Now I will say that my first cutting. I'm a little further north and Steve so I have to wait later to cut and it does get a little rank. That's usually what I see my horses they get the the worst end of this work or deal and I sell the better hay to the customers. But we usually put that first cutting up in our barn dry because it is a little rancor a little steamier but also but I never have had to do it in batch. Okay. Thank you. So we just passed two p.m. here so just as a brief brief summary what we're we kind of discussed here. I just mentioned a lot about the importance of so fertility and pH to be correct for a fall for establishment. We also talked about the importance of having the harvest happening on the proper timing, especially on the first year just to make sure that to your stand your stand was going to be well established. This is going to help a lot, especially with the root system and the storage for that that stand. And it's an option to use alfalfa as mixture with other grasses as we were just talking about, but I think the main take home message here would be that the management is key. And it's important that it's very well defined and planted ahead and for for you to be able to succeed on the alfalfa business.