Keith Rico, Langford, ND

Saline seeps or alkaline soils bring little value to producers and may grow larger in size, bringing less value to the farm. Most of the time these areas are only 5 to 25% of a field, but rent or taxes are paid without returning income.

In 1992, a farmer in North Central SD, asked me about finding a crop that would grow in a field that grew only average barley or sunflowers, 1 out of 4 years. This 35-acre part of a quarter grew Kochia best, most of the time.  This part of the field was not draining well and was increasing in salts.

I suggested he try an alfalfa variety designed for poorer draining soils. This alfalfa was working well in tougher/wet soils of Minnesota and Wisconsin. This alfalfa is a branched or floating root that stays above the water table. A normal alfalfa taproot goes deeper after seeding and in 2-3 years is trying to grow in a saturating root zone. The higher water table in these areas causes root rot and chokes out the alfalfa. Mag III-wet alfalfa was developed and patented by Dairyland Seed for the Marshfield area of Wisconsin. It performed very well in these wetter soils and was very winter hardy. Mag III-wet also has won many University of Wisconsin yield trials.

The problem with these soils is the seedbed is only ready after June 1 or dormant seeding. I told the farmer in South Dakota to wait for the soil to get fit, so that the seed slot would close in these sticky soils. He burned down the weeds early to save moisture for the shallow planted alfalfa.  He planted the alfalfa approx June 10th before soil moisture was depleted from the seed zone or 3/8th inch depth. The window for planting is critical for seedbed tilth before it gets to hot as this is tough on small seedlings.

The farmer was able to get 30 of 35 acres to catch. The high demand of alfalfa for water over 5-6 years reduced some of the seepage, which helps reduce salts in most of the area. He was able to rotate back to other crops for a few years. Some fields may have to rotate back to alfalfa again depending on the seeps.

NRCS has a program for cost share in some counties to bring high salt /low producing soils back into production. A farmer in Bowman County in 2000  planted a seep area to Mag-3 wet with NRCS cost share. In 2002 in a very dry year he was able to get a third cutting of .4 ton per acre due to the higher water table in this area. This area was a non-crop area, in the past.

This has been done also in Sargent, Cass, Barnes, and Ward counties. Keys are; ideal seed bed conditions, and  high producing salt/wet tolerant alfalfa.  This reduces the seepage or water table, which helps keep salts from pushing up.

I have also had success with establishing alfalfa in low producing grass fields or pastures. I no-tilled an aggressive grazing/haying alfalfa into a field after spraying with 1 quart in the fall.

Problem #1.    When junegrass is mature in the fall, it does not take in spray. I reduced the grass stand by about 2/3.   Cool season grass should be sprayed early.

Problem #2.  Depth control on a single disk drill @ 3/8 inch, the root mass and residue was aprox. 3/8 inch. This did not allow slot closing or seed to soil contact in all areas. I reset the depth deeper to get the slot closed and seed to soil contact.

This field produced up to 3 cuttings, some years. Other years we cell grazed it and rotated. We also obtained a late cutting, with rain.   By doing this, it produced a lot more than the junegrass, although we still had a light stand of junegrass, because of the late spraying.

Because of my mistakes, I had others spray early, and seed a little deeper.  Because of this we obtained great results, when it was planted early with moisture. Planting in early or mid May, depending on location and grass green-up, will get a better kill, when spraying. One farmer in northeastern South Dakota was getting $18 pasture rent on rolling creek bottom pasture, now he gets 3 cuttings of good alfalfa.