As an alfalfa stand ages and thins, the primary question becomes: Is this stand good enough to keep? Now is a good time to evaluate stands as more time is allowed for planning crop rotations than when stands are evaluated in the spring and determined to be uneconomic.

Over time with many common farming practices, we start to lose some of those minerals to insolubility, erosion or crop exportation. As with sentences, a soil's integrity can deteriorate as these minerals are depleted, leading to reduced plant health, more pest pressure and overall harvest productivity decline.

Summer annuals in a double-crop system can return more dollars per acre, but not all summer annuals return the same value or yield.