Bulletin No.

120

Document Type

Bulletin

Department

Agronomy Department

Description

The interest manifested in this forage plant shows its widespread and rapidly increasing popularity. Of seemingly unlimited productiveness, unhampered by many factors which affect the growth of corn, cereals and grasses, it keeps pushing its boundaries, north, east, south and west, to higher altitudes, until only few areas are not supplied. In these regions where it is unable to produce from four to six cuttings, it is content with one or two, and even then when given a chance by a favorable season, responds with a third. Inquiries concerning the culture indicate a determined effort on the part of all farmers to produce this "queen" of nitrogen gathering legumes. The organisms which live in the tubercles on the alfalfa roots are the poor man's friend. "They not only work for nothing and board themselves, but pay for the privilege.'' The history of alfalfa has been written so many times in bulletins, various text books and the agricultural press, so that a resume of that phase of the subject seems unnecessary. Civilized man in his march of conquest and settlement has carried it with him into all countries. Its introduction into the United States has been both from the east and from the west; the greatest progress, however, has been from the west, because under these conditions it thrived more luxuriantly, proving its value more conclusively as a great forage plant.

Keywords

alfalfa varieties, Medicago sativa L., South Dakota crops

Pages

24

Publication Date

4-1910

Type

text

Format

application/pdf

Language

en

Publisher

South Dakota Experiment Station, South Dakota State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts

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