• • • Bastard alfalfa (Medicago varia Mart.) as legume-gramineous mixture in the European North
Lack of legume component in perennial mixtures to be cut is explained by short period of economic use of red clover (Trifolium pratense L.) that is practically the only legume crop in northern regions. Promising species Medicago varia Mart. is able to improve quality of domestic bulky feeds. Several varieties of this crop show good productive longevity (over 4 years) in the cold regions as well as stable yield of forage mass on lands that have relatively poor fertility and low pH of sod-podzolic soil. The paper reports on bastard alfalfa “Selena”, “Pastbishchnaya 88” and “Agniya” as components of legume-gramineous mixtures. Six years of alfalfa cultivation revealed that its ratio in grass mixtures exceeded the one of red clover. Mixtures with alfalfa provided higher yields of dry mass (7.6‒8.5 t ha-1), feed units per 1 ha (6.22‒6.98 thousand), exchange energy (75.8‒84.7 GJ) and crude protein (0.97‒1.05 t ha-1) versus the same characteristics of red clover (6.1; 4.84; 60.1; 0.64). Alfalfa stands gave high values of energy (exchange energy content — 10.0‒10.8 MJ/kg of dry matter, crude fiber — 22.2‒27.7%) and protein (crude protein content — 11.8‒17.7%), meeting the Standard.
Source: https://kormoproizvodstvo.ru/en/11-2018-2/, p. 23
You can order translation of the full text into English (kormoproiz@mail.ru).
