How to grow alfalfa?

I have a six acre field that I'm trying to convert over time into a food forest. It's just not possible right now for me to get ahold of enough woodchips to cover the whole field, so one of the strategies that I'm using is chop and drop. I'm growing comfrey but I would like to add alfalfa to the grass layer. Does anyone have any tips, especially for ways to do it without tilling? I love that alfalfa fixes nitrogen, feeds bees, and is supposedly good for chop and drop and (according to some) dynamic accumulation. I hear it's drought tolerant too--has that been your experience?

We have a good thread about alfalfa. What I gathered from the post was this:

Rory Turnbull wrote:when to harvest:you could harvest sprouts( and eat them), wait till they are mid age or right when they flower for highest nutrients.

soil conditions: light, well drained deep soil, but ive seen people grow it in pots many times but you loose the benefits of alfalfas deep roots.


when to plant:spring-summer outdoors, all year indoors.

info:alfalfa is a great plant, one reason is its available everywhere, and its cheap, and it works awesome. Alfalfa is one of the more commonly known plants that are used as a fertilizer. You can get it at most animal feed stores for very cheap, its 12$ for 50lb bag here.

I think broadcasting the seeds might be a good approach.