Alfalfa for pellets and hay is harvested BEFORE going to seed. It is cut right as the plant starts to flower, preferably right before. You get multiple cuttings (approx 4) per year off a single alfalfa field, each time cutting just before it blooms. You would literally be cutting your harvest by about 75% annually if you let it go to seed before cutting. This is coming from someone whose family has put up alfalfa hay(which is what is used to make alfalfa pellets) for 50 years plus.
Where I am, you might get only one or two scythings, and in my case specifically one because I would shade-grow it to make use of an otherwise useless space in my garden.
It may be true that alfalfa meal may contain more nitrogen than the pellets. However, the more general rule for an organic fertilizer, such as alfalfa pellets, is that the pellets will feed microbes, nematodes, etc., and those byproducts produced will provide the nitrogen, etc. Insofar as I understand organic fertilizers, they are not meant to provide immediate and direct NPK to plants, but rather provide the means to a organic process that will later produce good fertilizer.
@@raczyk I use both as needed. But if something needs immediate feeding organics alone may not do the job. However, in general, it is better to have organic material in your garden breaking down all the time. That may be compost, leaves, wood chips, etc. these however take a long time to break but will yield much better results for your soil, and ultimately for your plants.
As the manufacturer of Alfalfa Green Organic Fertilizers, we can assure you the difference is all in the growth stage of the alfalfa itself. Pre-flower produces the highest levels (19-23% protein) and full flower is 17%, reducing to 15% or lower as stages continue. Nitrogen can be calculated by dividing protein by 6.35. So a 19% protein will give you a 3% nitrogen pellet vs a typical feed pellet of 15% -17% = 2.3 - 2.6% Nitrogen. The yield per acre is much higher at the advanced growth stages, but the quality is reduced. Alfalfa meal is simply reground alfalfa pellets. Pellets are reground as opposed to processed straight to meal to ensure a consistent bulk density for the final product.
So do pellets do the job? Since both meal and pellets gave to be broken down by microbes for usable plant form? Do these initial nitrogen values matter, since they are yet to be broken into usable plant form?
I put alfalfa pellets in my compost. I don’t have enough green stuff to have a balanced compost. My chickens are also attracted to it and scratch around in the compost. It serves a purpose for me.
Thanks Mark. Yes, if you are trying to add large amounts of nitrogen then use the meal or coffee grounds, but if you look at your first chart you can see the "Ideal Microbial Diet" is 24:1 and the pellets are almost at an "Ideal" ratio. So, if your goal is to just feed the microbes in an ongoing basis, the pellets should do just fine. When you plant a heavy nitrogen feeding plant, then add some meal but for the general year to year health of the biology in your soil the pellets should be good.
We use Organic Alfalfa as fertilizer in a vineyard of concord and muscats here in Arkansas. You might like to use something like "Basalt, Azomite,Crusher Fines" for trace minerals, just because if alfalfa is grown very long in one place it will use up most of the trace minerals where it is growing.
You are much better off growing a cover crop and mowing it down later. It will build soil aggregates and place carbon back in your soil for healthier plants. Thanks
There are a few confusing things here. Alfalfa for forage is usually harvested at the bud or very early flower stage, not at the seed stage. Tissue analysis shows that the plant tissues have 3-5% nitrogen at the early bud stage. In fact almost all healthy plants have 3 or 4 % nitrogen in their leaves and tissues. You can use chop and drop and get the same level of nutrients. Comfrey leaves are high in protein and therefore high in nitrogen because protein (which are strings of amino acids) has to contain nitrogen. Growing comfrey and putting leaves on the soil will do the same thing if not better than using alfalfa meal or pellets. Nitrogen is present in the molecules of plant tissue such as amino acids which are the building blocks of protein. When you say that the plant is mostly protein at the late stage there is nitrogen in that protein. More protein equals more nitrogen. It is also a component of chlorophyll, energy molecules such as ATP, and DNA. Nitrogen isn't floating around in the plant tissues all by itself. It is taken up as a component of other molecules. I am not familiar with the plant myths book or where the data comes from, or how it is reported but alfalfa meal and alfalfa pellets are exactly the same thing. It is only that the company selling the meal has had the contents analyzed. The amount of N is probably lower than fresh tissue due to the drying process. The only thing to worry about when using big bags of pellets is if the alfalfa is Roundup Ready which most commercial growers use. That means that the alfalfa will have been sprayed with Roundup and you don't want to put that on your garden. If you use alfalfa pellets be sure to get the much more expensive organic variety. Or, just grow comfrey.
@@iamorganicgardening The nitrogen isn't gone it is in the protein of the seed. Protein is made up of amino acids which all contain a molecule of nitrogen. But, they don't harvest alfalfa at the seed stage. The leaves will start to brown (which means less nitrogen in the leaves because they are dying) and the cellulose in the stems turns into lignin which isn't useful to the livestock (primarily ruminants like cows) it is meant to feed. The plant will regrow if harvested at the bud stage. They can get 3 or 4 cuttings when harvested this way. Personally I think this alfalfa fertilizer is another gimmick used to separate the gardener from his or her money. This link gives the percentage of nitrogen and other nutrients of alfalfa at the bud stage or very early flower stage which is when it is harvested. Some is lost during the drying process. www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/agdex739/$file/561-18.pdf?OpenElement
@@karinchristensen220 THANK YOU for your insight and link. We have few same views and some different ones. I am keeping a open mine and what you have shown me and storing it. I really enjoy farming and gardening on my 22 acres and hearing other views and research. Again THANK You.
@@iamorganicgardening I know you mean well. The source you are using regarding production of alfalfa pellets isn't correct or has interpreted information incorrectly. I prefer to bring in as little as possible for my garden, instead I try to improve on what I have which takes time. I feed livestock animals and with this drought in the southwest I am having to rely more than I like on pellets. The pastures are looking pretty sparse. This will be a summer of hoping and praying for rain.
Great information Mark! I was thinking of using alfalfa pellets as an experiment this year - but you've changed my mind. Also, you should get an award for being so diplomatic about refuting others promoting anaerobic tea. God bless you and your son.
Boy I wish I came across your video before I bought my 40lb $40.00 bag of organic alfalfa pellets! Still going to toss them into my new raised beds, but lesson learned. We brew espresso every day. Will be using those grounds instead in future! Thank you so much for your very informative video. You’ve won over a new subscriber here!
THANK YOU for the sub. Always here to share and help. You will love how coffee grounds help you garden. Just do not leave on top of soil to dry out. ENJOY.
You just stopped me from blowing money. I got Gaia Hreen Alfalfa Meal and it is dusty and doesnt look like much went around but, I also added a decent amount of coffee grounds that i have been collecting all winter( enough to fill a scotts mini spreader to the top) and I had immediate pop, and I also added gypsum for probably the first time since this house was built in the 70's. We get snow plow dump directly onto the lawn with no curb, and salt on the road. I am doing a bunch of other stuff to my lawn as well. It Kentucky bluegrass so I am trying to promote root development, adding compost and biochar that is super dupercharged. Next yr, maybe all I need is fish hydrolysate and some calcium, and some new bluegrass seed this fall. 👍🏻🇨🇦👊🏻👨🏻🏭⚡💖🙏Thanks for being the only one who seems to know this, and a few commenters who knew. Lol. You got a new subscriber Sir. 😉👌🏻
It's astounding to me how SO many farmers are still stuck on pouring purchased chemicals all over their land every year and just can't figure out why they never really make any money.
Writing this before fully watching: There are zone 6bs all the way from mountains near the equator where it means a frost every 3rd night because it's a tropical location that's so high altitude that it freezes a lot to coastal and island Alaska. It's more useful to give "winter hardiness zone 6b and an average of a 29 week frost-free growing season" (with the season weeks calculated based on the growing season for Newark, NJ according to Almanac - just divide the no. of days by 7) so people know what to expect with regards to that. Greetings from sunny, chilly Prince George, BC, with a 3b to 4b US winter hardiness zone and a 13 to 18 week frost-free growing season, usually with fairly consistent rainfall but last year it was a "green drought" (my lawn was green, but there was a water deficit), where I intend to try to grow a 100 day variety of maize, as well as alfalfa (which I call lucerne because apparently that's what it was called in the old country (I'm English (as in, from England) originally) in a shady spot, and assorted vegetables such as levisticum, carrots, alliums, tomatoes (a fruit), and various legumes and beans including both common and tepary (the latter of which I do not anticipate doing well because this is not a desert). I've also seeded out some hippophae rhamnoides which I hope will spring up some time soon.
I made a lot of anaerobic weed tea (just threw a bunch of pernicious weeds in a bucket of water and put a lid on) this past summer, and I didn't end up using all of it before winter weather set in. So I brought it into my basement, and several months later it has no smell at all. So I'm figuring that the nutrients from the weeds are there but that the bacteria are now dead and so wouldn't be a problem for me to use in the garden starting next season. I've actually watered herbs I have in my grow room with it, and they're doing great. What are your thoughts on that?
Great Info. I've seen a lot of talk about this and seriously questioned some of the things being said. You've presented this quite well and backed up what you are saying.
Thanks for another great vid. I really appreciate all the useful info on your channel. Letting water stand for a day does not work for me because my muni water has been treated with chloramines. I've tested most of the single-stage filters that claim to remove them. For the most part they are junk. The Boogie Blue Plus was the best at ~70% reduction when new. I've been working on this problem for several months and have cobbled together a four-stage filter that gets the residual ammonia down to less than 0.5 ppm. I'd like to be below 0.25, but that is really, really tough to do on a budget. So I treat five-gallon batches of water that have been run through my system with buffered ascorbic acid to eliminate the residual.
Thank you for talking about how anaerobic is unwanted. I get so concerned every time I see someone promoting making a highly stinky container of anaerobic goop - and prizing the smell as if it is proof of its goodness - and then putting that in their garden. Yikes! They're probably fortunate if they have enough good guys in the soil to knock out the toxins for their plant's health and for their own.
Wrong. JLF is wonderful for the soil. Nature does it's thing, balacing itself and doesn't distinguish between "good" or "bad" microbes. The proof is in the pudding. It works.
~ *Wow!!!!* I am soooooo thankful for finding your video, because I literally was going to purchase some of the pellets in the next couple of days! Thank you.....I'm definitely purchasing the alfalfa meal and getting some of those coffee grounds from my nearest coffee shop!!!!!
the pellets are cheap $32 for 50 pounds if one is smart and buys animal feed. The meal is $52 for 25 pounds. It's a no brainer at those margins The most common use for the pellets ( for me) is in the ground in the hole when I lay my garlic out in the late fall.
You mentioned well water; I strongly suggest if you have a well to get your water tested. My dad got bladder cancer and 1 year later my mom was diagnosed with bladder cancer and at that time the doctor recommended they have their well water tested. The test showed extremely high levels of arsenic and other heavy metals. They have been on the same farm for just over 40 years and my dad never thought about getting the water tested because the water tasted fine. Further tests showed my dad had leukemia, diabetes and mom is going blind and has lupus. They are in and out of the hospital every month. Do yourself a favor and take a little time to get your water tested…a lot of people test their soil and forget to test their water….small price to pay.
At 4:30, you say that the nitrogen content of the pellet is between 8 and 10 percent less than 2.5, and then you say that makes it 0.25. That's a big difference. Which one is it? Thanks
It is 10 % of the total 2.5 which is left ( .25 ) .as you look at the chart on the right side 90 % when in the seeds.. I might have say it wrong. But gave the right answer.
@@iamorganicgardening Not sure how you come to the conclusion that it's only 10% of the meal. Figure 17.1 shows where the nitrogen is located in the plant, not how much there is. Would need to know how pellets are created, from what part of the plant and how much nitrogen is in the plant at harvest time.
THANK YOU so very much for writing back . It is very Helpful to my channel to see how you are looking at this video. I do make mistakes and will always listen. The meal is the max percent of Nitrogen alfalfa can give before flowering. Stated by a Guaranteed Analysis. Pellets are from the mature alfalfa plant to get the most protein from it . The stem and leaves are only use in making pellets. As the chart shows 90% N is in the seeds. So only 10% of the value is Nitrogen is left. I did make a mistake and said it is 10% less. Should have said 10 times less. THANK YOU for pointing this out.
Thank you Mark. Lots of well researched information. Though how you describe the figures in words can be confusing, you then provide the actual figures, which makes it clear. Excellent video 👍
@@iamorganicgardening interesting. I wonder why they do not use the seeds to make pellets if they are going for the most proteins possible. Seeds have a ton in them, what are they used for for it to be worthwhile to separate them at harvest? Thanks
@@iamorganicgardening I get used coffee grounds from Starbucks and Circle K. I would love to do a comparison of which is better. From my novice experiments our compost red wiggler worms like Starbucks grounds better but the Circle K grounds break down faster in our soil and don’t cake up causing poor drainage.
So do pellets do the job? Since both meal and pellets gave to be broken down by microbes for usable plant form? Do these initial nitrogen values matter, since they are yet to be broken into usable plant form?
Mark, 3 times in the video you say "amount that’s in the pellets is about 10% less that’s in the alfalfa meal". I believe you are meaning to say pellets have 10% of what is in alfalfa meal (not 10% less than). Also, it would be helpful if you commented on tracisetter2164’s comment that pellets are actually made from alfalfa that is harvested from 4 cuttings per year, each just prior to flowering and going to seed. Is it possible that a difference between meal and pellets is due to pellets being processed with heat, making them more sterile, as another commenter suggested? In summary, maybe meal if pellets are not as good as meal, maybe it is for a different reason? I am not so sure yet. Thanks.
Maybe this will help you more. I wish I said that neither one is helpful to your garden soil adding nitrogen to the sand, silt and clay. This is due to LOTS of nitrogen is tied up as a mineral in the real soil and the bacteria and fungi eat the minerals and then the protozoa and nematodes eat them releasing the nitrogen and all other minerals to the plant needs. This has been done from day one on this earth. You do not need to add nitrogen to your soil or any other nutrient's unless you are growing in pet moss which is not soil. Farmers today that trust this process grow hundred of thousands of acres of corn with adding nitrogen or other nutrients if the have a large life of microbes in their soil. THANKS
Thanks for the info from this video. The comfrey tea should be aerobic also? On the end of video you mentioned that the cover crops legume should be cut before flowering, it is valid for clover also?
Our soil is like a microscopic underground city, with many citizens doing their part to help the city run. When people dig up the soil and/or use chemicals their destroying that city and rendering the soil sterile. I love watching your channel and always learn so much! Thank you! Oh and I bought a big bag of alfalfa meal 😁
I think you are mixing a few things by packing the highlights of a 4 year biology degree into 20 minutes :). First is that all organic compounds are C-H-O (Sugar/Carbs), C-H-O (fats and lipids) or C-H-O-N (protein) [C=Carbon, H=hydrogen, O=oxygen and N=Nitrogen]. So the only organic compounds with Nitrogen are proteins. So, any amendment that doesn't high in protein will not add any N to the soil from decomposition.. Alfalfa is high in protein, so it does add N, but that N has to be consumed by microbes to be plant available, so it takes time. As your previous video showed, Alfalfa pellets are more sterile than the meal, so it has to recruit microbes from the soil to a greater extent to metabolize the alfalfa and make it plant available. The N-fixing bacteria take the N from the air, so they are not limited by your soil amendments - they ARE the amendment. The second fact that was very clear in the last minute, but might have been confusing during your discussion of pellets - is that legumes symbiotic relationship with the N-fixing bacteria is such that, as they fruit the sugar & carbo exudates fall off and the nodules give up the stored N to the plant. That means that N left in the soil is greatly reduced. I think that is the difference you were getting at when talking about how alfalfa for pellets is raised. It is raised to mature, which mean it depletes all the N in the soil that you grow in, but the pellets do still have some N - though they may also have been raised for seed and the seeds which will have the bulk of the N. I always plant peas before tomatoes. I want to leave N in the soil though, and eat peas. So what I do is I plant my pea rows, but I don't let the peas over my tomato spots fruit. I harvest shoots from those plants and then cut them back before the plants for peas start to flower. It seems to leave enough N in the soil where I put my tomatoes, and I get shoots for salads and some peas from this succession planting.
Per The Rusted Garden, Gary Pilarchik, I put pellets on top of my raised beds in the fall, along with some compost, etc. Cover with cardboard. Had tons of earthworms throughout this spring.....
I don't add alfalfa meal to my soil for the purpose of adding nitrogen, I add it for minerals and trace minerals, so would it make a difference whether I use alfalfa meal or pellets? As for using coffee grounds, I feed them to my worms along with other kitchen compost. But I only use grounds from certified organic coffee beans. I read that conventional coffee plants are some of the most heavily sprayed (pesticides, fungicides, herbicides). I don't know if/or how much of those chemicals remain in coffee grounds, so I don't go looking for free coffee grounds to put in my compost or my garden.
Hello, Please watch this video I made. Your real soil ( sand silt and clay ) has all the trace minerals you need already and a huge amount. You do not need to add them back. This amazing woman DR gave a speech about this at the one minute mark in this video. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-727CusOu8X0.html . Coffee beans are protected buy the out shell. Then removed from them and clean. If there was a problem lots of people would be sick if it was true what you are saying and suing the coffee industry.
Most town water is treated with chloramine rather than chlorine, which remains in solution for a long time. It can be eliminated instantly with campden tablets. One tablet treats 20 gallons.
I have rabbits and they waste quite a few pellets and it gets mixed in with the manure and then I throw the manure into a big pile and it sits there, my question is is the alfalfa pellets helping or hurting the fertility of the rabbit poop. Now this rabbit poops been rained on and it's been sitting there and aging even though it's not necessary to age rabbit poop because I didn't have a place to use it but I'm fixing to start using it.
Is this true for all alfalfa pellets sold? Is it all collected after the plant has gone to seed? The cheapest alfalfa I have seen is pellets for animal feed, a 20kg bag for £15.55 Inc VAT (sales tax). That's here in the UK.
Mark, As a long time subscriber, I can attest to why your channel has grown from strength to strength Your in depth analysis and viewpoint is quite unique and refreshing Keep up the good work
I enjoyed the materially went over in this video about alfalfa meal vs. alfalfa pellets and the information on the brewing of teas using these products. Now I am from an agricultural state, and I’ve been directed towards brewing of teas using the alfalfa seeds that are abundantly discarded by farmers after they harvest due to the sheer amount of them. So does a higher ratio of nitrogen reside in the seeds after the farmers harvest the alfalfa? And if so do these seeds make for a better brewing of these teas?
I have looked on the Canadiangardensupply web site. They have some really interesting products. I am shifting my thinking from fertilizer to bacteria and fungus, but there is so much to consider. Could you comment on some of the market products that claim to help build the soil?
Thanks, Mark. I use alfalfa meal that I buy from my local feed store at about 6 quarts (dry volume) per 100 square feet. I'm thinking about using more this season. Any thoughts? With your comments about aerobic vs. anaerobic tea, I wonder what you think about the JADAM anaerobic fertilizers and other "ferments"?
Like the soil tell you... how quickly it gets eaten. If eaten add more would be better. Not a big fan of anaerobic teas. But your choice.. your garden. Thanks for asking.
So feed the powder to your plants and feed the pellets to your farm animals. Got it. I like that down to earth brand. All of their products are pretty nice. I have had good luck with many of them. I do find that alfalfa meal takes a while to break down in the soil and I don’t recommend it for growing chop-down container grown marijuana production but in a long term perennialized container scenario I think it would do well to provide long-term nutrition. Of course it’s going to do great in the ground but I know it mostly from using it in a container production.
@@karinchristensen220 I think the organic providers take greater care in how they provide their meal vs their pellets, but you surely have more experience on the animal side, but also I think there was an issue of when it is harvested, or at what stage of development it is harvested...?, but I sense it is a somewhat complex issue.
@@MrDuffy81 It isn't complex. Look at Standlee livestock feed. They are the only company that I know of that produces organic alfalfa pellets - although there are probably others. You can buy a 40 lb bag for about $21 at Tractor Supply (vs about the same price for a 5 lb bag of Down To Earth alfalfa meal). According to the Standlee website the pellets are "100% Organic Alfalfa Pellets are high density pellets of Standlee forage." Standlee forage is allowed "to grow to the proper stage of maturity, cutting the plants, allowing them to sun-cure (dry) to an acceptable moisture level and baling the forage at the optimal time." Standlee uses second cut alfalfa in their pellets. Second cut alfalfa is harvested during the hotter time of summer so is faster growing having a higher stem to leaf ratio but is still high in nutritional protein (protein equals nitrogen). During the many processes that the hay goes through to become pellets, there is a lot of loose material left over. This is sold as meal.
@@karinchristensen220 Well you have shown the price disparity but so far it is only speculation that the meal is a byproduct of the pellet production. Just because one company does it that way does not mean that the down to earth people do it that way. It might be the case but you have offered your opinion not necessarily proof. Plus people who are using the pellets are using it to feed animals. People who are using the meal or using it to amend their soil and often times those smaller boxes by down to earth are used for organic container gardening. Sounds like you don’t think it’s a good deal to buy the meal but sometimes that’s all people need. you have some interesting points of view. Sounds like if you want the meal you will just crush your pellets but I still am a fan of the down to earth product at a pretty cheap price which I enjoy using on my container plants.
I have read the book on JADAM. They take and grow there own Microorganism in water and feed with a potato this seems to me to be anaerobic bacteria and a lot of what I am reading anaerobic bacteria is not what you want. This is very confusing. There is wide spread success story's about JADAM. What is your thought on this.
I have found over the years to try things yourself and then decide. I am sharing what I do on my farm and garden. Me both believe in growing or own microbes is a start, but different ways . Thanks.
JADAM is fantastic! The recipes boost soil health naturally. It's very beneficial and although it rubs some people the wrong way because they've been taught differently, there is no denying that it works if you ask anyone who uses it. This is centuries old knowledge that has been lost to some along the way.
No its harvested before it seeds. you get the same from both. And down to earth is 3 times more in price. Some pellets even more than down to earth its high end feed. thay dont let it go to seed. Sorry to burst your info bro. buy the pellets and save the money for the same even better. lets say he was right 3 times more for your money wuld make the dif. By the way i use the pellets to feed the micro not the plant.
Thanks for your insight. You can feed the microbes for FREE using USED coffee grounds or grass clipping and get better results. Why buy either pellets or meal. Alfalfa is great animal feed only.
It is 10 % of the total 2.5 which is left ( .25 ) .as you look in the chart on the right 90 % when in the seeds.. I might have say it wrong. But gave the right answer.
Thanks for this Alfalfa pellets are made for animals that need the protein I didn't want this pellet gardening fad reducing the amount of food available for animals;) It makes great sense
@@iamorganicgardening you know it makes sense with the leftover rabbit pellets if all in one spot don't really decompose well they decompose like a protein like meat in a way it's not usable by plants But some scattered with the bedding mixed well with hay and pine shavings everything works I would not take my rabbits food and use it for fertilizer better gone through the rabbit first lol Much love xoxox
It is 10 % of the total 2.5 which is left ( .25 ) .as you look in the chart on the right 90 % when in the seeds.. I might have say it wrong. But gave the right answer
Your math is wrong. The statement 10% less nitrogen means that you would subtract .25 from 2.5 with the result of 2.25%. This means that they are virtually the same. The only difference is the form they in. One is pulverized into almost dust and the other is bulkier. Pound for pound the pellets are a lot cheaper. Also using a chart from some's book without naming the book and author is very sleazy and probably illegal. And then totally misrepresenting the information through phony math makes this guy a total hack.
