Hi-Salt Salinity Tolerant Alfalfa Seed:
Improved Yield and Quality in Saline Soils
- Reduce seedling loss during stand establishment
- Increase total farm yield
- Curb and remediate salinity
Alforex’s Hi-Salt Salinity Tolerant Alfalfa Options:
Alforex’s latest addition to the Hi-Salt alfalfa line-up is Rugged II, an FD3 variety especially well-adapted to the Northern Great Plains and higher elevations of the Intermountain West, suited to both irrigated and dryland systems for hay or grazing. Growers in the transitional zone between dormant and non-dormant alfalfas will want to check out AFX 647, a new FD6 variety that demonstrates a 4% yield advantage over its predecessor with a fast recovery after harvest and persistence for medium and longer rotations.
Why plant salt tolerant alfalfa varieties?
Salinity is a natural byproduct of irrigated and dryland agriculture in low rainfall areas. Over time, soluble salts move upward in the soil profile. When rainfall or irrigation are not sufficient to leach accumulating soluble salts from the root zone salinity rises. This rise in salinity interferes with crop growth.
The salinity of soil and irrigation water is usually measured and expressed as Electrical Conductivity (EC). Soil with an EC range of less than 1.0 will have little effect on germination or yield. For every EC point above a variety’s salinity threshold, yield decreases by 7.5%.* In a field with EC measurements approaching EC 4.0, the expected seedling mortality is 35% and yield may be reduced by 15% in unimproved alfalfa varieties.
Hi-Salt salinity tolerant alfalfa seed, like AFX 647, AFX 457 and Rugged II, offers growers a powerful tool to improve germination and yield on dryland and irrigated alfalfa fields in the Southwest and Western United States affected by salinity. These varieties raise the salinity threshold over unimproved varieties to maximize seasonal forage yield.
Alforex® Hi-Salt Salinity Tolerant Alfalfa reduces seedling loss.
Alforex’s salinity tolerant alfalfa varieties can reduce seedling loss in a high salinity field from an expected 35% to negligible amounts.**
Hi-Salt alfalfa varieties reduce the impact of salinity by 2.0 to 3.0 soil electrical conductivity (EC) points. In addition, in fields with even higher levels of salinity, planting varieties with the salinity tolerant trait have allowed producers to grow alfalfa in areas where it was thought to be impossible by improving germination to develop strong stands from the beginning.
Alforex® Hi-Salt Salinity Tolerant Alfalfa increases total farm yield.
Hi-Salt alfalfa varieties’ increased salinity threshold means an increase of total farm yield by negating or reducing yield drag conventional alfalfa varieties experience on high saline fields, both irrigated and dryland.
Earning the Hi-Salt Designation
All Alforex Seeds alfalfa seed varieties that carry the Hi-Salt designation have demonstrated germination salt tolerance under the standards established by the North American Alfalfa Improvement Conference (NAAIC). Several also meet the standards for forage production under salt stress.
An alfalfa variety with both germination and forage production tolerance is recommended for soils with ECs exceeding 2.
Hi-Salt Grower Mandan, ND
“This is my first time planting alfalfa. I choose the Rugged Alfalfa for grazing our cattle knowing that we had saline issues with the pasture and on average receive very little rainfall. We are happy with how it’s performing for grazing cattle in the first year with almost no rainfall.”
Willie Kist
Rancher
Mandan, ND
Hi-Salt Grower, Battle Mountain, NV
“Of all the alfalfa varieties we have on our farm, AFX 457 has been the best by far. The best in establishment on saline soils, best in yield, and best in quality. Winter hardiness has been extremely good. It is overall the best alfalfa on our farm ever!”
Denny Cawrse
Battle Mountain, NV
Hi-Salt Grower, Melstone, MT
“Rugged has a great longevity in holding up to the grazing pressure from our cows in the winter along with deer and elk. I still get 5-7 tons per acre on an 8 year old stand. Rugged provides the feed quality I need for our cows and feedlot. It also holds up extremely well in the tough environmental conditions of central Montana.”
Bill Bergin
Melstone, MT
Hi-Ton and Hi-Salt Grower, Burlington, WY
“The Hi-Salt and Hi-Ton® varieties have been great products in producing high quality alfalfa in Wyoming.”
Bill Candee
Candee Farms
Burlington, WY
Hi-Salt varieties are making a difference for growers with salinity issues across the Northern Plains, Arizona, Texas and the rest of the American West and Southwest. These varieties are pushing acceptable yields further into the hot spots, negating salinity’s effect on germination and yield. They enable the grower to better utilize available irrigation water and to generate revenue on fields and pastures previously thought unproductive due to saline levels in the soil.
Hi-Salt varieties were developed from top performing alfalfa varieties and perform equally well in non-saline soils where the variety is adapted, making them a versatile option for your farming operation.
Download our Management Guide for more information on growing alfalfa in saline soils.
Additional Resources:
- For more information about Hi-Salt alfalfas visit our Ask the Alfalfa Expert Blog or our library of Management Training videos.
- Managing Alfalfa on Saline Soils
- How Drought and Soil Salinity Affect Alfalfa
- Alfalfa Drought Management
- Current product guides can be found here.
* Maas,E.V. 1984. Salt Tolerance of plants. In Handbook of Plant Science in Agriculture (ed). B.R. Christie CRC Press Inc.
** Benes, S., et. al., What Is The Ability Of Alfalfa To Sustain Saline Conditions? In Proceedings, 2014 California Alfalfa, Forage, and Grain Symposium,Long Beach, CA, 10-12 December, 2014. UC Cooperative Extension, Plant Sciences Department, University of California, Davis, CA 95616. (See http://alfalfa.ucdavis.edu for this and other Alfalfa Symposium Proceedings.)