Clover maintenance advice

[Doe Shooter]

I'm so tired of starting over at one of the most critical times of the year....september. I have read LC's threads around 4 times now and I really admire his plan. since i plan on using this plot to roll into an LC mix, I think I'm going to experiment.

1/3 will get nothing, 1/3 will be mowed, 1/3.....well I don't know yet.

I think everybody eventually finds what their level of commitment and effort fits their goals. It's like a diet. You start off fired up and then the commitment wanes.I like annuals because the effort is front loaded during the cool time of the year.Right now, in this heat, I just want to drive by early in the morning and look at the plot. Getting dizzy in the heat is a non starter for me.

 

[FarmerD]

Learn from my mistakes! A picture is always worth a 1000 words. This strip was mowed too short in June of 2016. After a rain, grass and weeds came thru and smothered out the clover. I didn't have time to get back and spray.

 

[Doe Shooter]

Learn from my mistakes! A picture is always worth a 1000 words. This strip was mowed too short in June of 2016. After a rain, grass and weeds came thru and smothered out the clover. I didn't have time to get back and spray. View attachment 12565

Yep. Been there. Knowing what I know now , I would set the mower to clip the about 2" off that stand about August 15 around here.

 

[FarmerD]

I am similar to DoeShooter, in that, because of some severe droughts we have had in the past, in the southeast, I will always add at least a medium red clover to my mix (biennial). Then I will always 'save" some of my "previous year annual mix" and let it go (let it stand) for another year, as insurance in case we have a fall drought. A few years ago, October planted plots, down here, did not germinate till late November. I always hedge my bets, now.

 

[FarmerD]

I like perennial clovers and have some, however an annual plot, of wheat, oats, crimson, ladino, medium red, daikon radish, purple top turnips and a little dwarf essex rape, is a great fall draw, in the south. My plot pictures above, had that in there and they each have a specific life span, but then allows the clover to fill in, for the time of the year, that the deer need the protein..

 

[David]

Farmer D, thanks for your input.


Entering my third year of plotting, i am begining to see the power of properly planned seed choices. The plot as a whole can essentially bloom year round. Each plant has strengths and weaknesses. My recent amazement has been oats. I had some left over naked oats and threw them out in an over grazed bean field....they provided food from mid September till just a few weeks ago. The herd finally consumed every seed head. But grains alone will still fall short of excellence. It's why I am so impressed with LC. His understanding of the three major plot choices....clover, grains, brassicas.....is amazing. I'm always second guessing my self in plotting choices. This thread in particular shows it.

I am usually upset with myself for doing too much. I might let the clover ride without mowing. Your picture of the mowed strip looks regretful.

Question, how will you overseed grains and extra clover in the fall? I don't have a planter. Will I see good growth of the over seed without traditional discing, cultipacking, spreading, and re-cultipacking? Should I expect the cool weather to take care of the summer weeds?

Thanks

David

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[FarmerD]

If it's allowable by the mods, let me guide you over to this place, for your review. It focus's on things to do in the south, which is slightly different than other area's of the country. http://forum.gon.com/threads/fall-food-for-thought-plot-thread2.808598/

LC was a very wise man and experimented in many ways and that's sometimes what we have to do, to tweak, what works best for our goals, with our dirt, in our area. Again a picture is worth a thousand words and this will show, for the south, a reasonably good annual mix. You still have to plant it in the fall, but for our area, it will carry you through from October to October and be a good "draw" for deer and feed them properly along the way.

 

[FarmerD]

Now, for an annual/perennial mix .... You've already got a pretty good stand of ladino clover there and what I would do, come September 15th, is decide how much of it you want to leave and turn that area into your perennial plot. Clover does reasonably well in shade, so you might want to leave those areas for your ladino. In your ladino area, you can always just broadcast wheat or cereal rye in there and let it go. You can always broadcast more clover in there too, if it's thin or if you want to add just another variety. That's the way Mother Nature plants. Also, on September 15th, broadcast 200 lbs to the acre of 0-20-20 fertilizeron your ladino.

Then, if you want to take the other part of your plot, work up the ground, broadcast your seed and cover it, you can have an area that will draw deer. Look at the peak utilization chart above. Small grains and brassica's for hunting season. But let me also say that nothing beats acorns ...... nothing. So, don't be afraid to fertilize some of your oak, & persimmon tree's next spring .

 

[FarmerD]

Just a comment on your original pictures. "You" may think it's pretty much a failure, but a doe looks at it and says, "hey, there's food at my feet, I feel sort of protected, it's clear enough I can look around and with this tall stuff and I can hide my fawns in here!". What we think is perfect and what deer think is perfect, are usually 2 different things.

Having said that, I would still cut those unwanted tree's out of there and use a squirt bottle with glyophsate, to spray on the cut trunks.

 

[FarmerD]

Another wise man, who has lots of great information and shows great success is CNC http://www.deerhunterforum.com/index.php?threads/throw-n-mow-thread.663/ There are lots of things that you can consider and apply in there.

And I always have to add that, my assumptions are that you've taken a soil test and amended your soil properly and will make adjustments as needed. Lime is the poor mans fertilizer. Without proper ph, you're throwing your money away on fertilizer.

 

[FarmerD]

For reference, this is what a "version" of the Cadillac Combo looks like the end of October. A pretty good buffet, and the growth of "my" seeds, gets ahead of most weeds. Most weeds that will germinate in there will be killed off at the first hard frost, while "my" plants continue to grow.

 

[FarmerD]

And again, this is what that combo looks like now. I weed wiped in April, which killed off the wheat, oats,tall broad leaf weeds and (bad) grasses, to release the clovers. I won't mow, because does start dropping fawns in May, so I stay out of there and by the time the fawns are big enough to leave the food plots, "we're entering" the heat stress of summer, and I would do more harm than good to the clover. Cutting off the top, most tender part of the plant, that without rain, may not regrow very quickly. The deer trails are all over in there, just like in yours.

 

[FarmerD]

"Question, how will you overseed grains and extra clover in the fall? I don't have a planter. Will I see good growth of the over seed without traditional discing, cultipacking, spreading, and re-cultipacking? Should I expect the cool weather to take care of the summer weeds?"

Assuming you used a reseeding crimson clover, you'll see lots of that. Arrowleaf is an "ok" reseeder and your new ladino seed will show up more so next spring. Add wheat or cereal rye in a hand crank seeder and you'll be good to go. Spread your seed after October first and when you see good rain in the forecast, you can mow the plot over top your seed.

 

[split toe]

Great info FarmerD!

 

[FarmerD]

Thanks split toe!

 

[Mennoniteman]

Clover is a crop that absolutely thrives on being mowed high. However, I usually mow in mid June before the heat hits. (clover isn't my focus for fawning cover) I had a plot that looked exactly like yours does, after several mowings and a shot of herbicide it now looks like this; once I have my clover plots looking like this I can ignore them for several years, they are on cruise control.

 

[David]

Thanks to all who have contributed. Great info.

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[Triple C]

David...Great thread and one we can all learn from. I'm a big perennial clover fan and still in the learning phase of how to best manage it. Deer are wearing it out right now. Last fall, I incorporated ladino and durana into newly created plotting ground. In these newer areas, my clover is competing with more weeds and grass than in the more established plots. I may have made a mistake this past weekend cause I mowed these areas to about 4 inches, clipping off many of the flowering clover heads. Hopefully with the cool spell we're having I'll get a quick bounce back on the clover regrowth. I plan to spray Cleth this coming weekend to eliminate the summer grasses and will follow advice on here to not mow except for broadleaf control, and at a height that doesn't clip the clover.

I have a couple of 1/3 acre plots in a pure clover stand that have a few weeds and grasses coming up. I mowed these this past Saturday and hope to spray this weekend. In the bigger plots where I've established clover around the perimeter it's doing great. The tree line seems to provide the perfect amount of shade for the clover to thrive. The deer are devouring the clover planted around the perimeter.

Here's a few pics of deer in the perimeter clover over the past couple of weeks in a couple different plots.

 

[DIY]

We're in our extended period of heat down here and the summers are typically dry. My Durana is already thinking about going dormant, but my medium red, and ladino are still producing.

I thought Durana was developed to outperform ladino during the dry, hot southern summers. Is that not your experience? I was thinking about planting some this fall.

 

[FarmerD]

Durana does a great job and my Durana plots are 10 years old. We've lacked a little recent rain and have had a lot of heat, so the Durana is suffering a little, however a nice slow 1" of rain and it would perk right up again. My Durana has been crispy brown (sometimes) in July and August, but when September rains come, it perks right back up again. Part of the reason for that too, is because I let it go to seed and have a good seed bank established. Durana will grow from spreading stolons, as well as from the seed bank.

Per Pennington (although there are some exceptions based on soil type), Durana grows best, above a line that's drawn from Macon Georgia, to Dallas Texas. My plots sit right on that line, LOL.

https://www.pennington.com/-/media/..._sheets/durana-clover-technical-sheet-pdf.pdf