Sainfoin is a perennial forage crop by which forage is produced through several cuttings each year. Cutting may affect quality as well as forage yield of sainfoin. Therefore, this experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of different cuttings on forage quality and yield in 12 local ecotypes of sainfoin in Esfahan during 2002 - 2003. In the experiment, a split plot design in time with four replications was used. Local ecotypes were considered as main factor while cuttings as sub factor. For each cutting, forage yield and some quality traits such as leaf percent, leaf-stem ratio, protein, fiber, and mineral content were determined. There were significant effects of the ecotypes, cuttings and their interactions observed for all the traits. Khansar2 ecotype produced the highest forage yield, leaf percent, leaf stem ratio, mineral content, and forage quality. Boein-miandasht-1 and Freidoonshahr-1 produced the highest protein and fiber content, respectively. In average, the first and sixth cuttings produced the highest and the lowest forage yield, respectively. The first to sixth cuttings produced 24, 17.2, 14.3, 18.4, 18.6 and 7.9 percent of the total forage yield, respectively. Khansar2 in the first cutting, Freidoonshahr 1 in the second, third, fourth and sixth cutting salong with Khansar 2 in the first cutting produced the highest dry forage yield per hectare. The first and fifth cuttings produced the lowest and highest mean leaf percentage, respectively. The highest protein content (28%) was shown to be produced in the second cutting. The fist cutting had the highest forage yield as well as mineral content with the third cut the had highest crude fiber content. Khansar 2 and Boein-miandashtl, in order, produced the highest forage yield and forage quality.