Latham Hi-Tech Alfalfa: Higher Quality. Greater Yield. Better Nutrition.

Farming is like dancing with Mother Nature, and Mother Nature always leads. We can’t control the weather, but we can manage around the risk.

Understanding a seed product’s features and benefits is powerful tool to help reduce production risks. Alfalfa from Latham Hi-Tech Seeds provides growers with options to better place the best genetics for certain soils to enable a product to perform at its best.

With this in mind, let’s review some of Latham’s top alfalfa products:

• Features of LH 9120: branch root expression and finer stems.
  Benefits: LH 9120 can be planted on wetter soils. If conditions remain wet, the plant will respond with several branching roots instead of one major tap root. NOTE: Alfalfa usually has a singular tap root. In a water-logged situation, alfalfa with a tap root will not survive as long alfalfa with a branch root. Branch rooting give additional support by bringing several roots closer to the surface of the soil, allowing for better respiration. Additionally, 9120 has a finer stem.  Finer stemmed alfalfas tend to dry quicker for baling.

• Features of LH 9700: disease resistance, unparalleled recovery after cutting and multi-foliate expression.
  Benefits: LH 9700 is a very powerful, high horsepower type of alfalfa protected with disease resistance. It protects the plant, giving it the best chance of long-term stand. Quick recovery after cutting means the crown buds produce new leaves quickly. Leaves catch the sun, build essential carbohydrates for the crown, and generate more yield and better quality. I relate each leaf to a cylinder in an engine. As we add cylinders to an engine, it adds more horsepower for better performance. It’s the same with alfalfa; more leaves equal more energy to produce top yields and superior quality.

• Features of America’s Alfalfa AA 481 RR/HarvXtra: low lignin, Roundup® resistance, and high disease resistance.
  Benefits: Reduced lignin helps AA 481 RR/HarvXtra achieve better fiber digestibility. When compared to conventional alfalfa, research has shown to deliver 14 to 18 % relative forage quality (RFQ). Higher quality forage nourishes the animal, so it gains valuable feed efficiency and that leads to higher profitability. Additional benefits include harvest flexibility of seven to 10 days while maintaining excellence in quality and producing as much as 20% more yield. This is helpful to help manage around weather events. Roundup Ready benefits include keeping fields clean, improving forage quality, reducing weed competition, and extending stand life. This alfalfa product also has high resistance to anthracnose, which can damage stands. HVXRR 481 has HR rating for Race 1 and R rating for Race 5. This product is one of the newest commercial selections for HarvXtra alfalfa with top yield capacity. It also boasts extra yield and stand life, protecting benefits to reduce risks of anthracnose disease.

Latham Hi-Tech Seeds offers a variety of products, each with special features and benefits. Remember, each seed is treated with Latham’s Alfashield^TM, which gives our seed a competitive advantage by emerging faster, growing strong, and yielding more!