Alfalfa (Medicago sativa) is a perennial flowering plant. It is an important forage crop for cattle and horses. Alfalfa is one of the most important legumes used in agriculture. The US is the largest alfalfa producer in the world. The leading alfalfa growing states (within the USA) are California, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

Alfalfa lives from three to twelve years, depending on variety and climate. It is a cool season perennial legume, growing to a height of 3.25 feet. It resembles clover with clusters of small purple flowers. It also has a deep root system sometimes stretching to 14 feet. This makes it very resilient, especially to droughts. It has a tetraploid genome.

Originally alfalfa was domesticated in Iran during the Bronze Age to feed horses being brought from Central Asia. I came to Greece around 490 B.C. being used as a horse feed for the Persian army. It was introduced from Chile to the United States around 1860.

Alfalfa is widely grown throughout the world as forage for cattle, and is most often harvested as hay. Alfalfa has the highest feeding value of all common hay crops, being used less frequently as pasture. Like other legumes, its root nodules contain bacteria, Sinorhizobium meliloti, with the ability to fix nitrogen, producing a high protein feed regardless of available nitrogen in the soil.

Currently, Chaffin Farms is capable of harvesting their alfalfa 9 times annually. Typically after harvest alfalfa must cure 3-7 days prior to baling, depending on the time of year. Approximately 85% of all alfalfa production at Chaffin Farms is baled for the retail market. Chaffin Farms donates alfalfa hay annually to groups that use livestock in the rehabilitation of people with learning difficulties.

Cotton and Upland Cotton:

Cotton is a soft fiber that grows around the seeds of the cotton plant. The fiber, once processed to remove seeds and traces of wax and protein, consists of nearly pure cellulose, a natural polymer. Cotton production is very efficient in that ten percent or less of the weight is lost in subsequent processing to convert the raw cotton bolls (or seed cotton) into pure fiber.

Each cotton fiber is made up of twenty to thirty layers of cellulose coiled in a neat series of natural springs. The arrangement of cellulose gives cotton fibers a high degree of strength, durability and absorbency. When the cotton boll is opened, the fibers dry into flat, twisted, ribbon – like shapes becoming interlocked and linked together. The interlocked form is ideal for spinning into a fine yarn.

Upland Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum), also known as Mexican Cotton, is the most widely planted species of cotton in the United States, constituting some 95% of all cotton production. Worldwide, the figure is about 90% of all production for this species.

Each year Chaffin Farms donates several hundred pounds of harvested cotton pods to the Boys Republic for their signature Della Robbia Wreaths. Chaffin Farms also produces, thru their exclusive cotton markerters, Calcot, signature cotton towels. See link to Calcot for ordering your specially produced bath towels.

Wheat and Durum Wheat:

Wheat is a grass and is the most important human food grain and ranks second in total production as a cereal crop behind corn. Rice is in third place. Wheat grain is a staple food used to make flour for breads, cookies, cakes, pasta, noodles and couscous. When fermented it is used in beer, alcohol, vodka or biofuel. Sometimes wheat is used as a forage for livestock and the straw can be used as fodder for livestock or as a construction material or roofing thatch.

Wheat and barley were the first cereals domesticated in Turkey. Due to a loss of seed dispersal mechanisms, domesticated wheats have a limited capacity to propagate in the wild. 2006 was the first year the world consumed more wheat than the world produced. A gap that is likely to widen as the requirement for wheat increases beyond production. The use of Wheat as a biofuel will exacerbate the situation.

Durum wheat (Triticum durum) is the only tetraploid species of wheat widely cultivated today. Durum is the hardest of all wheats. Its high protein content and gluten strength make durum good for pasta and bread.

Most of the durum grown today is amber durum, the grains of which are amber colored and larger than those of other types of wheat. Durum has a yellow endosperm, which gives pasta its color. When durum is milled, the endosperm is ground into a granular product called semolina. Semolina made from durum is used for premium pastas and breads.