In this Lucerne Tree Farm YouTube video, Myles describes how he prunes his mature lucerne trees for cattle and sheep feed.
Most of these trees are about 6 years old and have been planted along fence lines and in rows in camps. Lucerne trees are exceptionally fast-growing, reaching 6m height in 4 to 6 years. Lucerne trees are highly nutritious, with similar nutrient values to normal alfalfa ground lucerne, but without the danger of bloat. You can read about lucerne trees on our website ~ Lucerne Tree Information
In this video you will see how much food one lucerne tree yields after just 15 minutes of aggressive pruning. Pruning always stimulates the lucerne tree to produce new, vigorous growth, develop thick, sturdy branches and trunk, as well as to maintain the trees shape. If farmers wish to have their animals graze directly off the lucerne trees, then they will need to prune their trees to 1.5m height regularly. These pruned branches are placed in a cattle feed “ring” where the cattle or sheep strip off all the leaves, leaving bare branches. (These dried branches make exceptional fire kindling.)
One mature lucerne tree yields about 50kg of fresh cuttings on each pruning which will feed about 8 cattle in a day. These pruned trees take between 3 to 5 months to recover their full growth, especially if irrigated or during the rain season, ready to be pruned again. Because lucerne trees are evergreen, they provide fresh, nutritious feed year-round. All our information on pruning is here ~ Prune Trees
Myles also mentions another fodder tree called Leucaena. This is also a legume tree with rather thin, spindly stems which can be browsed right down to the ground and will sprout out numerous branches again and again.
We supply hand-picked lucerne tree seeds in packs of 100’s or 1000’s shipped around the world (where international postal shipping Covid restrictions have reopened). We also courier young lucerne trees either in potting bags or in tube-packs (depending on our stocks available) to South African clients. Please pop over to our Orders page to fill in the contact form to place your order.
Happy Farming!
Lucerne Tree Farm 