Does early harvest harm an alfalfa stand?
If the stand is at the early to late bud stage, early harvest will generally not damage the stand as long as subsequent harvest intervals are not shortened. Harvesting before bud stage can lead to stand losses but to a large degree this is dependent on just how early the harvest takes place and whether a subsequent harvest is delayed enough for root reserves to be replaced (allowed to go to full bloom or given an extra week to ten days between harvests). Why do you need to delay one of the subsequent harvests? The reason is that when the alfalfa is cut early, only a portion of the normal energy reserves have been replaced in the roots. An early harvest, especially pre-bud, will place a severe drain on the reserves while the dormant crown buds break dormancy and grow enough to begin energy reserve replacement. Normally when the first harvest takes place at late bud or 1/10 bloom, the crown buds have broken dormancy and are beginning to grow. This allows for a very fast recovery and high
