When the infestation is in only a few spots in the field, the remedy is
to cover with straw, soak with kerosene oil, and burn. All the
infestation at the edges of these spots must be destroyed.
When the dodder is too widely distributed throughout the field to
permit of this treatment, the only course is to plow the field at once,
and to grow cultivated crops for two or three years. It is believed
that no variety of dodder produces seed freely in the eastern states,
and that the hay made from the first crop of alfalfa or red clover will
not contain any seed of this pernicious plant.
The Seeding.--When alfalfa has become established on eastern farms, the
difficulties in making new seedings will be smaller. The experience of
growers will save from mistakes in selection of soils and preparation
of the ground, and the thorough inoculation with the right bacteria
that can come only with time will do much to insure success. The
unwisdom of making seedings in ground filled with grass and other weed
seeds will be appreciated. It is quite probable that much successful
seeding will be made in wheat and oats, where the alfalfa is to stand
only one or two years. These practices are not for the beginner. His
land is not thoroughly supplied with bacteria, and every chance should
be given the alfalfa.
If there are no annual grasses, such as appear so freely in some
regions in mid-summer, spring seeding is excellent. A cover crop is
then desirable, and nothing is better for this purpose than barley at
the rate of 4 pecks of seed per acre. In all experimental work 25
pounds of bright, plump alfalfa seed per acre should be sown. The
seeding should be made as soon as spring comes, the barley being
drilled in, and the seed-spouts of the drill thrown forward so that the
alfalfa will fall ahead of the hoes and be covered by them.
Seeding in August.--Much land is infested with annual grasses and other
weeds, and in such case seedings should be made in August, as described
in Chapter VIII.
Subsequent Treatment.--If the alfalfa plants find the bacteria at hand,
they will begin to profit from them within the first month of their
lives. A large percentage of the plants may fail to obtain this aid in
land which has not previously grown alfalfa, and within a few months
they indicate the failure by their light color, while the plants
liberally supplied with nitrogen through bacteria become dark green.
Where there are no bacteria, the plants turn yellow and die.
There are diseases that attack alfalfa, causing the leaves to turn
yellow, and when they appear, the only known treatment of value is to
clip the plants with a mower without delay. The next growth may not
show any mark of the diseases.
[Illustration: Curing alfalfa at the Pennsylvania Experiment Station.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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