When is it too late in the fall for clover?

We have rain coming Monday and I have some areas where I'd like to top seed some annual clovers to provide additional food next spring. I already have the clover seed (crimson, arrowleaf, berseem), but I'm wondering if I'd be better off waiting and frost seeding in Feb/Mar at this point. The property is on the Cumberland Plateau about an hour north of Chattanooga, TN. The first evening freeze of season is forecast for late next week.

The latest suggested planting date that I've seen for clover in this area is Oct 15, so I would be exceeding that by about a week if I seed Sunday before the rain.

I would wait and frost seed in Jan/Feb. March is pretty good, but sometimes Tennessee starts getting warm in march. Of course, the Plateau gets snow when other parts of the state doesn't. We had a lease up there and you could bet it was always 10* cooler up there. We have been up there hunting in 25* weather with 3" of snow and get back home and it was 38* and no snow.

Food for next spring? Then I would overseed WR or WW and RC now. Both have time to feed this fall and next year grain will give early greenup and food and help with weed control and soil amendments. Then overseed your clovers if you want next March or just let the grains and clovers grow thru summer for fall rotations. I've overseeded as said early Nov in high country in my area with great success. Good luck.

dogghr said:

Food for next spring? Then I would overseed WR or WW and RC now. Both have time to feed this fall and next year grain will give early greenup and food and help with weed control and soil amendments. Then overseed your clovers if you want next March or just let the grains and clovers grow thru summer for fall rotations. I've overseeded as said early Nov in high country in my area with great success. Good luck.

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I probably should have said food for next spring and summer.

I guess my question is this - since I already have the clover seed, why wouldn't I just top seed it now with WR rather than doing the WR now and the clover in Feb/Mar? Is it because by seeding now the young clover could freeze and die?

Crimson does not like frost. It may not have enough grow time to harden off and winter over. Up here in zone 4b, planted labor day, it winters over fine.

WW and WR will have enough warm days throughout the winter, to grow and provide food and let the clover hang out waiting on the perfect warm day to explode out of the ground. I would still wait until Feb/Mar to overseed the clover. I think that if I was there in January, I would throw some down. We tend to get most of our snows in late January/early February and they aren't deep and sure don't hang out that long. Now, I was watching weather predictions the other evening and they were predicting above average temps for us based on the current trend out west with La Niña.