The amount of good alfalfa variety performance information available to producers pales in comparison to grain crops.  This is primarily due to the fact that perennial forages don’t lend themselves to easy “on farm” yield trials and most plant breeding companies are reluctant to release results from their own tests of competitor varieties.  Hence, the final decision generally comes down to making an educated (or uneducated) guess or checking out results from university performance trials.

            We are fortunate in Fond du Lac County to provide one of the sites for UW alfalfa variety testing.  The results from the 2002-seeded trial are presented below.  A word of caution:  this is one location and one year.  As we’ve learned in the past, these rankings can change in the 3^rd production year and a specific variety may be much better or worse at another location in the state.  Additional location information will be available later this month or is currently available on the internet at: http://www.uwex.edu/ces/forage/alf04.htm

* Yield not significantly different from the highest yielding variety