I looked into this during a previous California drought and my (very limited) understanding is that alfalfa is an important part of crop rotation in California because it sucks salt out of the ground very effectively. CA starts with high salt content and other crops raise the salt content more, which risks “salting the land” and wrecking…
I looked into this during a previous California drought and my (very limited) understanding is that alfalfa is an important part of crop rotation in California because it sucks salt out of the ground very effectively. CA starts with high salt content and other crops raise the salt content more, which risks “salting the land” and wrecking the soil. I’m sure there are other crop mixes and intensiveness that could work, but the issue isn’t alfalfa specifically.
I’ve been trying to figure out how much the alfalfa problem is really isolated and how much alfalfa is used as a fallow crop to fix nitrogen for other crops. If the latter, then we would have to account the water use to these other crops. It sounds like you suggest that salt is another reason to account alfalfa in with other crops.
Alfalfa also adds nitrogen to the soil, which most crops typically deplete. It's a natural fertilizer, in other words, and doesn't cause the runoff issues that other fertilizers cause.
Oh fascinating, I didn't realize it's also good for adding nitrogen back. It makes sense, a major benefit of cows is they can eat a wide range of food, so feed can optimize for soil quality relative to other crops.
It's a feedback loop with regards to over-fertilization for other crops and reliance on flood/pivot irrigation that increases soil salinity levels thus requiring alfalfa to be planted. Of course, raising water-intensive crops in the San Juaquin is a topic of discussion for another day.
I looked into this during a previous California drought and my (very limited) understanding is that alfalfa is an important part of crop rotation in California because it sucks salt out of the ground very effectively. CA starts with high salt content and other crops raise the salt content more, which risks “salting the land” and wrecking the soil. I’m sure there are other crop mixes and intensiveness that could work, but the issue isn’t alfalfa specifically.
I’ve been trying to figure out how much the alfalfa problem is really isolated and how much alfalfa is used as a fallow crop to fix nitrogen for other crops. If the latter, then we would have to account the water use to these other crops. It sounds like you suggest that salt is another reason to account alfalfa in with other crops.
Thanks for this.
Alfalfa also adds nitrogen to the soil, which most crops typically deplete. It's a natural fertilizer, in other words, and doesn't cause the runoff issues that other fertilizers cause.
Oh fascinating, I didn't realize it's also good for adding nitrogen back. It makes sense, a major benefit of cows is they can eat a wide range of food, so feed can optimize for soil quality relative to other crops.
It's a feedback loop with regards to over-fertilization for other crops and reliance on flood/pivot irrigation that increases soil salinity levels thus requiring alfalfa to be planted. Of course, raising water-intensive crops in the San Juaquin is a topic of discussion for another day.