Ideas for existing alfalfa field

Hello, permies!

Background: I moved to my property around 18 months ago. The previous owner had planted a large hayfield of "non-organic" alfalfa that has been sprayed, baled and taken out of the farm regularly. Since I moved in I've been slowly working on rebuilding the soil and minimizing the damage by chopping the hay and leaving it in place to decompose and feed the depleted soil. I left some areas to regrow and re-wild as a habitat for wildlife. Obviously, no more use of any weed control chemicals. I also have been converting parts of the fields to food forests, fruit orchards and wildflower meadows. Using sheet mulching is my primary way to smother alfalfa, but I am also considering trying solarization this year. I am also bringing animals (chicken, goats and sheep) to graze and increase fertility and control weeds organically.

Slowly, the alfalfa is fading out as more plants come up and compete with it, but I still have a few acres of mostly vigorous alfalfa and looking for ideas and suggestions from the community.

I know "non-organic" farming is a controversial topic, but my line of thinking is that the most danger comes indirectly from the accompanying practices like heavy spraying of weed-control chemicals. i.e. there is not necessarily an inherited danger in my existing crop itself since it hasn't been sprayed for a couple of years. It is still benefitting the ecosystem in terms of nitrogen fixation, aerating my hard and compacted soil with its deep roots and feeding pollinators. Any thoughts on this assumption?

Do you recommend I continue originally terminating alfalfa and replacing it with other crops or just leave it and use it as grazing pastures for livestock or as a cover crop for orchards and food forests?

Rami, welcome to the forum.

It is hard to advise someone on how to proceed in such a large area.  I want to say plant mushrooms though that is not really an option for large areas.

This post may offer some understanding as to what the problem is with soil health:

Bryant said, "This however won't directly accelerate the remediation process because that process is interdependent upon bacteria, fungi, amoeba, nematodes and other microorganisms all building their microbiota world and thriving.
While root systems can help with the overall soil health by increasing the ability for water infiltration and air exchange, the roots are more of a third stepping stone in this particular scenario in that the roots aren't really necessary for the process to proceed at any pace.
If you increase the bacteria and fungi, the other microorganisms will increase because of the increase of food supply, so the only fungi that would really benefit from more roots would be the mycorrhizae, which are not actually part of the remediation battalion.

https://permies.com/t/93813/Recovering-yard-rounduped-helpful-neighbor#768385

If I had this problem I would look at other areas on my property where the alfalfa was not grown or maybe even consider container gardening for a few years.

What you have been doing by cutting the alfalfa and letting it return to the soil maybe you best option.

I'd use it as pasture or for hay while encouraging a more diverse polyculture to join it. I think you're right that the only local problem with it is that it encourages, but doesn't require, unhealthy practices. (I also don't love patented organisms, but that's way above the question of what to do with the land.)

Rami Enbashi wrote:Hello, permies!
I also have been converting parts of the fields to food forests, fruit orchards and wildflower meadows. Using sheet mulching is my primary way to smother alfalfa, but I am also considering trying solarization this year. I am also bringing animals (chicken, goats and sheep) to graze and increase fertility and control weeds organically.

Slowly, the alfalfa is fading out as more plants come up and compete with it, but I still have a few acres of mostly vigorous alfalfa and looking for ideas and suggestions from the community.

It sounds like you are heading in the right direction.  I've seen some amazing results adding animals to the system at repairing the land.

Another path that would be fun is sunflowers.  They are great at pulling unwanted stuff out of the land.  I would get the tall variety and then run chickens under the sunflowers when the sunflowers are tall enough to survive the chickens.  Then after harvest, chop the sunflowers and compost the stems.  The invisible beasties in the compost will help break down the toxins.  

The fact that other plants are growing in and around the alfalfa suggests the soil is healthy enough.
Having a source of green manure on hand would be phenomenal, and alfalfa is considered to be one of the best.
I would harvest it and add the resulting biomass to other fields.

I purchased an alfalfa field myself couple of months ago and these are the things I am considering/already doing:

- I have a farmer harvest the alfalfa on the piece of property I am not developing yet (without spraying), as it takes time to understand the details of the property (slope/wet spots), he gives me half of the alfalfa which I can use as mulch for my fruit trees. (I take the fertility of the whole area and concentrate it in the area of my fruit trees).
- Since there are no buildings on the properties, I put a 20x30 tarp down with a trench on the downslope, the lowest point has a solar pump which pumps it in a 275 gallon tank (which I will expand into a 1100 gallon tank as one rainfall already filled the 275 gallon tank)
- Got a lab test from Logan Labs, which showed me low levels of Magnesium. Since I have clay, I am going to experiment with multiple amendments as I don't want to clog the soil by adding a lot of magnesium.
- Alfalfa has deep roots that help develop the soil so I just going to let them live around my perennials (alfalfa is very easy to chop and drop by hand). I do plan to rototill the top 0.5/1 inch, then broad fork it, when I create some annual beds (keeping a strip of alfalfa on either side so the microbes/protozoa can quickly move into the roto-tilled area). I expect it to kill the alfalfa, but hopefully it sets back the growing cycle of the alfalfa enough for the annuals to outcompete, and the alfalfa again becoming my cover crop once the annuals have been harvested.

Hope some of it may be helpful to your situation

M