Widespread alfalfa winterkill being reported

Name any Upper Midwest state and there’s a good chance widespread alfalfa winterkill is being discussed. Although no year is a good year to be looking at brown alfalfa fields in the spring, the timing for this year is especially bad with wet conditions severely delaying spring field activities and the dairy economy still reeling from an extended period of low milk prices.By now, most alfalfa growers have been able to assess the damage, which ranges from complete loss to only portions of fields. I’ve heard about situations where the high spots were dead from not holding snow cover and others where the low spots had killed, presumably from being under ice and water for an extended period of time.The decision of whether to keep the stand or issue “last rites” is not always easy.“In fields where stand loss is patchy, decisions whether to keep the stand should be based on the health of the remaining plants and the total area lost,” says Kim Cassida, Michigan State University’s extension forage agronomist.