Location: Dairy Forage Research
Project Number: 5090-21500-002-053-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Sep 1, 2024
End Date: Aug 31, 2027
Objective:
Preserving and growing the acreage of perennial forage crops such as alfalfa as part of the dairy forage system is a key focus to increase the sustainability of these systems. One of the challenges with maintaining a perennial crop is maintaining persistence year to year in cold climates. As a key component of alfalfa persistence, alfalfa winter survival is of great importance to the farmer. Damage to stands in winter limits yield potential or at worst, can decimate a stand entirely. The objective of this work is to integrate research on alfalfa winterkill management into effective and useful decision tools for farmers, to better understand and manage the risks of alfalfa winterkill.
Approach:
This project will work on creating farmer focused web-application decision tools based on integrating climate/weather data as it relates to alfalfa winterkill management. Part of this effort will be to use existing full season alfalfa yield and quality data coupled with historic weather data to better understand and model cutting management decisions on-farm. Factors identified through this effort will be explored in validation plots established on research farms.
