Alfalfa, Alfalfa yellow honey plant

 

  Alfalfa is a good honey plant, which is used in agriculture mainly as a fodder crop. Farmers grow blue or seed alfalfa and yellow or crescent alfalfa, both of which are excellent honey plants, but as a honey plant alfalfa has its own characteristics that distinguish it from other legumes such as sweet clover, sainfoin or clover.

 

Content

• Features of the alfalfa flower
• Features of nectar secretion of alfalfa
• Pollination of alfalfa using bees
• Yellow alfalfa honey plant, also known as crescent alfalfa honey plant
• Honey productivity of yellow alfalfa
• Alfalfa honey plant, blue alfalfa honey plant
• When the honey plant alfalfa blooms
• Honey productivity of field alfalfa

 

Features of the alfalfa flower

 

The peculiarity of the alfalfa flower is that the alfalfa flower is pollinated only once - at the moment of its opening, after which the stigma is closely pressed to the sail. becomes inaccessible for pollen application.

Thus, only flower opening that ensures cross-pollination is biologically useful. See more details in the material Features of the alfalfa flower and its pollination 

Features of nectar secretion of alfalfa

The conducted studies show that the nectar productivity of alfalfa depends on environmental conditions. The main factors include air humidity and temperature. One alfalfa flower produces nectar from 0.21 to 0.49 mg (0.06–0.82 mg). The most important factor influencing the release of nectar by an alfalfa flower is air temperature. Flowers begin to secrete nectar at 25°C and above, and the maximum amount of nectar secretion occurs in clear and windless weather at 31°C and a relative humidity of 61–63%. In the regions of the steppe zone of the Krasnodar Territory, when alfalfa blooms, there are cold days even in the summer in July. When it gets cold, the air temperature can drop to 16°C. On such days, alfalfa does not produce nectar.

The alfalfa flower produces the maximum amount of nectar at 14–15 hours at an optimal air temperature of 29–30 ° C and a relative air humidity of 63–65%. Bees are more willing to open alfalfa flowers at midday, since the relative humidity at this time is minimal. With high humidity in the morning and evening hours, it is difficult for bees to open alfalfa flowers. Simultaneously with the decrease in temperature towards the end of the day, the amount of nectar in the flowers decreases.

Alfalfa can be considered a good honey plant for the main and supporting bribe. Using struts, the flowering period of alfalfa can be extended from May 20 to October 10.

Pollinating alfalfa with bees

Pollination of alfalfa for seeds is usually carried out using honey bees, alfalfa leaf-cutter bees, attracting local solitary bees and wasps, and also combining these methods.

• Organization of pollination of alfalfa by honey bees
• Experience of using leaf-cutter bees to pollinate alfalfa
• Methodology for attracting and reproducing local species of wild bees for pollination of alfalfa

Yellow alfalfa, crescent alfalfa

Honey plant yellow alfalfa, crescent alfalfa - Medicago falcata L.

Honey plant alfalfa crescent (yellow alfalfa) A perennial plant with a powerful, developed root system. There are tap-root, rhizomatous and root-sprouting forms, depending on the habitat conditions of the species. Crescent alfalfa has numerous stems, ascending, straight or prostrate, 40-80 cm in height, slightly hairy or glabrous. Crescent alfalfa has leaves of various shapes and sizes; inversely ovate, oblong lanceolate, lanceolate, linearly lanceolate, oval or roundly ovate, 5-22 mm long and 2-6 mm wide. Crescent alfalfa blooms at the end of June and until the end of summer. Flower racemes are oval, capitate, with short stalks. The corollas are yellow with an orange tint, collected in groups of 20-30 in dense clusters. The pods are relatively small, sickle-shaped, less often lunar to straight, but not densely pubescent, 8-12 mm long and 2.5-3.5 mm wide. Honey plant alfalfa sickle-shaped plant of spring type of development. Mass ripening of beans - August-September.

Crescent alfalfa (Yellow alfalfa) is a good honey plant. The largest amount of sugar in sickle alfalfa nectar is released at 13 and 16 hours at an air temperature of 26-30 ° C and a relative humidity of 51-59%. The composition of nectar changes significantly during the day, for example, the glucose content decreases sharply at 2 and 5 p.m., so bees are less willing or do not pollinate sickle alfalfa flowers at this time. It was noted that the sugar content in nectar increases after the first cutting (June) of alfalfa; after the second cutting (July), bees are especially active in collecting sickle-shaped nectar from alfalfa.

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Honey productivity of yellow alfalfa

How much honey can bees collect from 1 hectare of yellow alfalfa? The honey productivity of yellow alfalfa (the honey productivity of crescent alfalfa) ranges from 25-300 kg/ha in the central regions of Russia. 

Crescent alfalfa (Yellow alfalfa) is frost-resistant, cold-resistant, can withstand short-term frosts (up to -3.-5°C) in spring and autumn, early ripening, moisture-loving and at the same time resistant to summer droughts. Grows successfully on fertile, loose, permeable, slightly acidic and neutral soils of varying mechanical composition.

The honey plant alfalfa crescent (Honey plant alfalfa yellow) is used for grassing meadows and pastures, sloping lands subject to destruction by water and wind erosion. It is characterized by very high winter and drought resistance, resistance to major diseases and pests. Alfalfa crescent is a perennial honey plant; it can survive in cultivated grass for more than 10 years. The honey plant sickle alfalfa significantly improves the structure and fertility of the soil and is a valuable precursor to many crops. The honey plant sickle alfalfa is used in pure sowing or in a mixture with perennial cereal grasses (bromeless brome, tall ryegrass, meadow fescue, rhizomatous wheatgrass, wheatgrass, rush grass, etc.) for green feeding, hay, silage, grass meal. The yield of green mass of sickle alfalfa is 75-150 c/ha, hay - 25-75 c/ha, seed yield is 0.5-3.0, rarely up to 5.0 c/ha. 

 

Honey plant alfalfa

 

  Honey plant alfalfa - Medicago sativa L. Perennial herbaceous plant with erect branched stems of the legume family (Fabaceae) 30-90 cm high. The leaves are compound, trifoliate, with elliptical or oblong leaflets. The flowers are blue-violet, moth-type. The fruits are spirally twisted beans. It is cultivated as a fodder plant in central and especially southern Russia. The honey plant alfalfa is cultivated in the fields. Sometimes alfalfa goes wild. 

In the honey plant alfalfa, the inflorescence is a compact raceme 10-25 mm, consisting of 5-30 flowers. The corolla is 6-15 mm long, from pale yellow to blue and black-violet, the calyx is tubular-funnel-shaped with linear-subulate teeth.

 

When does the honey plant alfalfa bloom?

 

What is the flowering period for field alfalfa? Alfalfa honey plant blooms in June-July. In the conditions of Uzbekistan, the flowering period for alfalfa is May June.

 

Honey productivity of field alfalfa

 

How much honey can bees collect from 1 hectare of alfalfa? The honey productivity of alfalfa varies over a wide range. The honey productivity of alfalfa in rainfed conditions ranges from 20-80 kg per hectare in the European part of Russia and Ukraine. In the conditions of Uzbekistan, the honey productivity of alfalfa in rainfed conditions is 15 - 20 kg per 1 hectare. When grown under irrigated conditions, the honey productivity of alfalfa increases to 300 kg per 1 hectare of crops; in the conditions of Uzbekistan, the honey productivity of alfalfa under irrigation is 30 - 50 kg per 1 hectare.