Re: Alfafa pellets/CdRom

 

Carol Channing:

Here is a little article that I wrote about alfalfa a couple of months ago.

Hope it helps.  Dennis Stoneburner has a receipe for tea (sans crumpets for
now, Dennis!!)

 	Alfalfa as a beneficial soil additive has many growers of iris and
daylilies excited!  This natural product seems to have marvelous properties
 and no offensive ones.
	It seems that in 1975, Dr. Stanley K Ries of Michigan State University
 established that alfalfa increased yields of certain plants.  He discovered
 that TRIACONTANOL, contained in the leaves of alfalfa, is an extremely
 powerful plant growth stimulant.  Alfalfa is also beneficial for soil
organisms.   It has a very high vitamin A content, plus thiamine, riboflavin,
 pantothenic acid, niacin, pyridoxine, choline, proline, bentaine and folic
 acid, plus nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium, calcium, magnesium and other
 valuable minerals.  Also included are sugars, starches, proteins and fiber,
 plus co-enzymes and 16 amino acids. 
	Alfalfa is good for people, too.  The North Buffalo Co-op on Main Street
 in Buffalo near UBUs south campus has a brisk trade in loose leaved alfalfa
 
 for teas at $8.00/lb.
	Anecdotal evidence that alfalfa works in the garden comes from
 commercial growers as well as home gardeners.  One says he has been using
alfalfa pellets for five years.  At first he tried them in one bed.  That bed
 was outstanding, and so he used them on all beds ever since.
	Other growers prefer to pass the pellets through the horse prior to use
.
	Some gardeners put a handful, or even a cupful in the soil in the hole
while planting individual specimens. The pellets can be sprinkled over the top
 of the soil around established plantings and can be left to dissolve -- they
 quickly turn into a mush -- or dug into the soil around the plants.  Alfalfa
 is not relished by squirrels and because it quickly melds into the soil, does
 not seem to attract other varmits. Some rose and orchid growers make an alfalfa RteaS and spray the liquid directly on their plants as a foliar
 nutrient. 
	Alfalfa pellets are available from Agway stores or wherever cattle and
 horse feed is sold.  Agway in East Aurora sells a 50 pound bag for $8.49.
  The price in 1988 in another part of the country was $6.40 for 50 pounds.
 
 
	Alfalfa pellets are a real RCounty-MouseS miracle substance. Farmers
 have been growing alfalfa to improve soil for a long time.  Now itUs 
available and has been proven to be successful for home gardeners, too.

	The technical information in this article comes from an article by Doris
 Simpson in The Daylily Journal, Fall, 1988.


Carolyn Schaffner in rainy Buffalo, NY  (don't have to dig for the sale today!!
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