Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) is a primary and widely cultivated forage crop in China. As a perennial leguminous grass, continuous planted alfalfa may influence carbon and nitrogen sequestration in soils. We evaluated the effect of alfalfa, planted for different lengths of time, and temperature and precipitation on soil organic carbon (SOC) and total nitrogen (TN) contents, and estimated soil SO...

Drought resistance is an important breeding target for enhancing alfalfa productivity in arid and semi-arid regions. Identification of genes involved in drought tolerance will facilitate breeding for improving drought resistance and water use efficiency in alfalfa. Our objective was to use a diversity panel of alfalfa accessions comprised of 198 cultivars and landraces to identify genes involve...

Alfalfa and bromegrass, each harvested at five different stages of maturity, were separated into water-insoluble and -soluble fractions. The NDF concentrations ranged from 19 to 43% for alfalfa and from 42 to 58% for brome. The rates of digestion, by mixed ruminal microflora, of the unfractionated forage and of the water-insoluble and -soluble fractions were measured in vitro using pressure sen...

A genetic linkage map is a valuable tool for quantitative trait locus mapping, map-based gene cloning, comparative mapping, and whole-genome assembly. Alfalfa, one of the most important forage crops in the world, is autotetraploid, allogamous, and highly heterozygous, characteristics that have impeded the construction of a high-density linkage map using traditional genetic marker systems. Using...

The Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA (ALFALFA) survey is a second generation blind extragalactic HI survey currently in progess which is exploiting Arecibo’s superior sensitivity, angular resolution and digital technology to derive a census of the local HI universe over a cosmologically significant volume. As of the time of this meeting, some 4500 good quality extragalactic HI line sources have been id...

Salinity is one of the major abiotic stresses affecting alfalfa productivity. Developing salinity tolerant alfalfa genotypes could contribute to sustainable crop production. The functions of microRNA156 (miR156) have been investigated in several plant species, but so far, no studies have been published that explore the role of miR156 in alfalfa response to salinity stress. In this work, we stud...

The soil bacterium Sinorhizobium meliloti establishes nitrogen-fixing symbiosis with its leguminous host plant, alfalfa, following a series of continuous signal exchanges. The complexity of the changes of alfalfa root structures during symbiosis and the amount of S. meliloti genes with unknown functions raised the possibility that more S. meliloti genes may be required for early stages of the s...

Sixteen Holstein cows in midlactation were used in a 4 × 4 Latin square design to determine the effect of replacing alfalfa neutral detergent fiber (NDF), with NDF from a combination of whole linted cottonseed, dried distillers grains, and wheat middlings. The four diets were a basal control diet that was low in forage and fiber [(5.9 g of corn silage NDF and 6.1 g of alfalfa NDF/100 g of dry m...

The sericultural productivity could be effectively modulated by enriching the silkworm diet with exogenous factors like alfalfa, a widely used homeo medicine. The minimum effective concentration (MEC) that promotes optimal larval growth, activates metabolism and improves silk production has been determined in Bombyxmori, by a stepdown process starting from higher concentration (5%) to a lower c...

Sinorhizobium meliloti bacteria produce a signal molecule that enhances root respiration in alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) and also triggers a compensatory increase in whole-plant net carbon assimilation. Nuclear magnetic resonance, mass spectrometry, and ultraviolet-visible absorption identify the enhancer as lumichrome, a common breakdown product of riboflavin. Treating alfalfa roots with 3 nM ...