Alfalfa

it's taken quite a long time.

Anyway, so one of the things that they love feeding on is Lucerne.

What is lucerne, you ask? Yeah, I do ask what is lucerne.

It is a silage crop which farmers put in their fields for several reasons.

Tolland, because it's got deep tap roots.

Wow.

So, Lucerne.

It reminds me of a character from Day of the Tentacle.

Thanks for joining me.

This story, which I share here in November 2026, is called Alfalfa to Oak Forest, Sounds of the Oaxacan Mixteca.

As you most likely know by now, I really enjoy recording bird songs and other sounds of nature and sharing them, and this podcast is going to be the first in a new series that I'm excited to share, focused on the sounds and stories of different natural areas on the landscape.

I'll be making a new page on my website to link specifically to these stories as well as older stories that fit in with this same theme.

One quick news note before we get to the break.

Alfalfa producers dealing with reduced yields after a dry growing season may be wondering whether those stands will make it through the winter or or if it's time to rotate fields.

Randy Welch, Cropland National Alfalfa Agronomist, says drought stress alone isn't necessarily a reason to tear up an alfalfa stand.

So there's really no loss in winter hardiness of drought stressed alfalfa.

So the alfalfa plant is designed to take dry weather.

Well, wait a second.

Alfalfa or grass hay? I thought he was just alfalfa.

Alfalfa question I think if you damage those plants they're not coming back and it's not going to fill in well and the reason why is the allelopathy that alfalfa creates so what happens with alfalfa the plant in the soil kicks out chemicals and don't don't lose your minds if you're in the word chemicals it's their own natural things to suppress other plants including their own species and This is why you can't interseed alfalfa into alfalfa.

So no, there's zero chance I would want to do that in alfalfa.

You can sure try it.

So it's interesting for me, you know, only really knowing alfalfa from my herbal perspective and thinking of it that way and then just feeding it to animals more and it's like oh it's just it's just interesting i could really see the

nutrient

dynamic with this herb based on how it is with the animals so anyways alfalfa rich in the following nutrients iron magnesium calcium potassium you'll see those three a lot vitamins a b c d e k and folate biotin it's a very rich vitamin profile now the vitamin d piece i think is interesting and that's you know and that might be yeah that part's interesting i feel like i'd like to learn a little more about that one so i'm like d really um now how was alfalfa typically used well we use it for general malnutrition i tend to think of it if i see someone that's malnourished they're very skinny thin weak emaciated they're tired they as i yawn um maybe they have blood deficiency right maybe they um if it's a woman if they uh bleed really heavily around menses maybe they're a vegan or vegetarian and they're just they're anemic uh that's these are some indications i think of um Alfalfa is incredibly antioxidant, slightly astringent, a bit vulnerary.

So you could use it a little topically, but it's very antioxidant.

So protecting the body from inflammatory damage, oxidative damage.

Usually herbs that are indicated for neurasthenia are nervines.

You see herbs like St. John's wort and milky oats and skullcap and things like that.

Alfalfa is not really a nervine.

Yeah.

Alfalfa always have your schedule for spring that you're required to every year, right? But one thing that based on the weather.

So how did that impact when you're choosing the varieties that you're using now? Are you using reduced lignin varieties?

I do have some hardback extra varieties.

Wild strawberry developed into large table variety by Johann Schwerdkopf, German, who came to Long Island before Revolutionary War.

Alfalfa seed, known as lucerne, brought to Minnesota and developed by Wendelin Grimm, German, in 1858.

Hearty alfalfa for prairies of Northwest, brought from Siberia and Turkestan by Niels Hansen, Dane.

Mower and reaper invented by Cyrus McCormick, Scotch-Irish.