Natures Clover Plotting

[dogghr]

It's always baffled me as to why my access roads traveled by jeep, tractor, or atv always seem to have a thick growth of some of the prettiest white and red clovers you can find. Certainly the seed is carried there by animals, and vehicle and wind. But my real question is why does it proliferate so well in those areas. Is it from compaction of soil, compaction of seed to soil contact, compaction keeping weeds at bay. Or does clover just like to get the crap beat out of it, and survives so well under those circumstances? I just know, when I walk along and clover is as thick or better in the pathway as is the legitmate clover plot, it makes me wonder. But then I'm easily distracted. Any ideas. BTW, tillage is not the issue.

 

[OkieKubota]

I always figured because competition is low in those areas...I see clover pop up on our lease roads and we have never planted any clover down that way. I figured it is seed that got transported by my /Tractor/Brush Hog from me mowing the clover plots at home and deposited when I am brush hogging those roads.

I try to take my equipment through a car wash before mowing our places at home after being on other properties mowing JG, SL, Canadian Thistle, and Fescue to try to keep from moving too much of that stuff to our property...

 

[Native Hunter]

Three Major Reasons:

1. It is because your mowing and travel sets back the competing vegetation more than it sets back the clover. Clover needs sunlight and some space opened up more than anything. You are inadvertently providing that to some degree in your travel ways via your actions of using and maintaining the travel ways.
2. What you are seeing more than anything is the native (ecotype) clovers that grow naturally in your area. They have evolved over centuries to thrive in your particular soils and conditions. You would see the same emerge on other parts of your land if you removed the vegetation that keeps the native clovers in the seedbank from germinating. However, if you did nothing else, the flush of clover would last only a couple of years as natural succession transpired. Survival of the fittest under harsh conditions over the years has made these plants hardened to your land and they will emerge - but only when given an opportunity.
3. Your travel way soil is very fertile because you take nothing off of it. Over many years the fertility builds as decomposition adds fertility and nothing is removed. The compacted soils are really not that great for the clover, but it has some tolerance of it, and taking advantage of the sunlight, fertility and removed competition outweighs the negatives. This ecotype clover has learned that chances to proliferate are few and far between, so the survival instinct to thrive in less than desirable conditions (and when afforded the few and far between opportunities) is built into its DNA.

 

[dogghr]

Ah yes, agree with both comments and my thinking also. Now how do we translate to our actual food plots? No till in some form of course the first step, but should we mow more frequently? Run across plots with our atvs and tractors at random using that trampling of unwanted grasses and weeds much as Gallow does with his cattle and their thousands of pounds of hoof power? Thus eliminating much of the need for chemical control? Would our plots be then even more productive?

 

[Native Hunter]

Ah yes, agree with both comments and my thinking also. Now how do we translate to our actual food plots? No till in some form of course the first step, but should we mow more frequently? Run across plots with our atvs and tractors at random using that trampling of unwanted grasses and weeds much as Gallow does with his cattle and their thousands of pounds of hoof power? Thus eliminating much of the need for chemical control? Would our plots be then even more productive?

Yes, we can probably draw some basic and general inferences to all of this, but we also have to be careful, because there are also some specific attributes to specific plants that we want to grow in our plots where we would have a hard time applying many of these principals.

For instance, I've never seen wild chicory on my place, and I really want to grow chicory. Even if I did have wild chicory, it wouldn't have the attributes that I desire most in chicory. So, what I plant will suit me (and the deer) for my food plotting purposes, but everything we have noted relative to the ecotype clover will not apply to chicory. The same will be true in other plants we may desire (such as your alfalfa, dogghr).

Very few plants will take mowing like clover (as can be attested by folks who mow yards), The relentless tramping of herds of mammalian herbivores may interrupt and even modify the successional chain, but it may not make the changes that are conducive to our goals and desires.

We hear the old expression, "...one day at a time...." For me it becomes one habitat job at a time and doing my best to understand how nature can help (or hurt) my actions. And, sometimes it will be wise to modify the goal if that action makes nature a partner rather than a combatant.

It all depends on what you want, what you are willing to accept, how hard you are willing to work, and how much money you are willing to spend!

 

[dogghr]

Still can't argue too much with thinking so far. But are we thinking too much in the box? In my previous life, the fields, and for that matter forests, were trampled by the hooves of the bison beast in my area on west. They were grazed and browsed heavily by multiple type animals. Since I'm not able to copy that by putting the black angus mowing machine on my place, are there ways to copy this action that was present in presettlement days? Can more frequent trampling of plots by machine copy those thousand pound hooves? Can more frequent mowing copy the multiple browsers/grazers that once were? Can it really be said that the weight of my atv or even tractor is going to cause true compaction problems when compared to a herd of once thriving bison? That's 300#s/hoof X number in herd which is considered to have been 15-20/ac.

When I used to mow clover anytime it was a foot tall, my plots were nearly grass and aggravating weed ( deer ignored plants) free. And yes even my alfalfa when it is mowed to control weeds or its heights, just laughs at the tramping it receives and comes back with a vengeance. There is a path I always take with vehicle between my alfalfa and rye plots. Despite the repeated year round passage, it always has the most grass free section of the two plots with chicory, clovers, alfalfa, rye in the path.

Why does chicory, yes it is a wild variety, grow so well on highway ROW ? Is it because the DOH mows the crap out of it multiple times of year? Certainly the deer are always standing there feeding on its clovers and chicory. Will our plots, including the weeds we don't mind in them, actually respond better and with more fresh growth if they are given a trampling and mowing or rolling with cultipacker on a frequent rotational schedule much as the herds once did? Can it take the place, or at least in part, the need for grass and weed killers we can come to rely on? Just ramblings and inner questions of a mad mountain man trying to copy what nature once did on her own so well.

 

[MarkDarvin]

I'm of the belief that what grows wild is an indication of what's going on in the soil. Dandelions mean you've got compaction. Clover means you've got low nitrogen. There's more for cocklebur, foxtail etc. Long time ago I came across a guide to soil issues diagnosed by weed species. Your clover will naturally snuff itself out as it provides residual nitrogen to the grasses.

 

[F12Mahon]

I'm of the belief that what grows wild is an indication of what's going on in the soil. Dandelions mean you've got compaction. Clover means you've got low nitrogen. There's more for cocklebur, foxtail etc. Long time ago I came across a guide to soil issues diagnosed by weed species. Your clover will naturally snuff itself out as it provides residual nitrogen to the grasses.

Care to share that guide or where to find it with us? My wife says I have enough books but I always need one more.

Eugene

 

[MarkDarvin]

I can't recall where I saw it, but here's a few good articles:

http://pioneerthinking.com/how-to-diagnose-soil-problems-with-weeds

http://pss.uvm.edu/ppp/articles/weedgd.html

http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/soil-indicators-zmaz87jazgoe

Ferns are a good indicator of low ph soil. I had a patch below one of my stands and I got tired of looking at it. Instead of trying to spray it out, I just hauled a bag of lime out there and laid it on at a good rate.

 

[F12Mahon]

Thank you.

Eugene

 

[dogghr]

I'm of the belief that what grows wild is an indication of what's going on in the soil. Dandelions mean you've got compaction. Clover means you've got low nitrogen. There's more for cocklebur, foxtail etc. Long time ago I came across a guide to soil issues diagnosed by weed species. Your clover will naturally snuff itself out as it provides residual nitrogen to the grasses.

I do agree with that Mark. But N is not a very stable soil source and I doubt clovers would self eradicate except in the finest of soils. The grasses alone would use enough of the N to require their need. Clover never disappears from a yard unless it is killed. It naturally exists almost anywhere.
These paths I speak of are not roadbeds but just paths taking thru fescue and fallow field. There is simply an increase in clover growth in these areas and I think it would be possible to increase or create a modified clover plot without ever laying seed ourselves or soil treatments. I don't think it is a plot planting replacement, but it certainly has doubled some plots in clover by just the mowing and abrasion/compacting actions of equipment. Just an observation on my part and I plan to test the theory on some fallow fields thru this year. Free clover and feed, who am I to complain.

 

[dtabor]

A few years back, I had a friend with an excavator come in and stump an area of expansion of one of my clover plots. The existing plot didnt look great, weedy but the deer didnt seem to care. Anyway, after going back and forth across it a couple times to access the the new area, it looked all chewed up and I was thinking that was the end of that area of the plot and would need to do it over.......a couple weeks later I went out and that area he drove over was the greenest most lush pure clover on my property. I was amazed.

 

[Charlieyca]

I do agree with that Mark. But N is not a very stable soil source and I doubt clovers would self eradicate except in the finest of soils. The grasses alone would use enough of the N to require their need. Clover never disappears from a yard unless it is killed. It naturally exists almost anywhere.
These paths I speak of are not roadbeds but just paths taking thru fescue and fallow field. There is simply an increase in clover growth in these areas and I think it would be possible to increase or create a modified clover plot without ever laying seed ourselves or soil treatments. I don't think it is a plot planting replacement, but it certainly has doubled some plots in clover by just the mowing and abrasion/compacting actions of equipment. Just an observation on my part and I plan to test the theory on some fallow fields thru this year. Free clover and feed, who am I to complain.

Dogghr, I had the same thoughts about where I park my truck on the side of the road. The last 2 years I have mowed my own section of road, so I don't walk through thigh high grass when parking to lock and unlock my gates. This area, and this area alone has a beautiful stand of white clover and just finished setting seed. Never a yard or food plot here, just mowed regularly for the last 2 years. I disced some areas that I edge feathered and may mow a strip of this to see if some clovers evolve.

 

[Chainsaw]

It works here also. Repetitive mowing of weeds in fields or travel roads that get some sun creates almost perfect beds of what looks like dutch clover. And continued mowing keeps the wild clover in good shape.

 

[dogghr]

It works here also. Repetitive mowing of weeds in fields or travel roads that get some sun creates almost perfect beds of what looks like dutch clover. And continued mowing keeps the wild clover in good shape.

I've already started planned mowing this year intentionally with this in mind. Has been great success early on. I think the native clover is there, and mowing /compaction by mowing which replaces trampling of grazers, allows the native plants to receive sunlight and less nutrient competition allowing it to grow. And i think clovers especially handle trampling and grow well as grasses are abused and respond slower the tampling whether by grazers or tractor. I'll show some pics when I get some.