Now is the Time for Clover Plot Maintenance

Mennoniteman

Well-Known Member
This past Saturday I threw a 200 gallon tote of water on the back of my truck and sprayed some of my small clover plots for weeds. This is probably the most important thing that I do all year for these plots, in fact, it may be the only thing I do all year for some of these plots. A food plot doesn't need to be perfect to attract and feed deer, but if someone has a hankering for a picture perfect clover plot year round, now is the time to act, and here is the secret on how to do it.
First of all, spring is a good time to spread fertilizer, and, while clover will usually grow just fine on poor soils, fertilizer on clover plots needs to be bought up to the spec's of soil tests to raise the nutritional feed value for the deer, a springtime application of 0-20-20 fertilizer is a top priority for me. And springtime, as well as any other time, is a good time to spread lime, although not my top priority, since springtime is busy for me I usually spread lime at other times of the year.
The main thing that keeps clover from growing well is competition from weeds, especially grass, and the best time of year to deal with that is early spring, right when the weeds start growing, but before they are taller than 3 inches. Spraying herbicide shouldn't be done when it's colder than 55°, so between the temps and the weeds being small allows only a small window of opportunity, and for me in zone 6b that's right now.
Clethodim, Butyrac 200, and several other herbicides are great for clover, but my weapon of choice right now is Imazethapyr 2sl, I was using an ATV with a 25 gallon sprayer on my smaller 1 acre plots, 48 oz of AMS, 16 oz of crop oil, and 4-6 oz of Imazethapyr 2sl per acre was the mix, if I'd have had some tough grasses to deal with I'd have added 10-16 oz. of roundup to the tank.
In early fall I will spread 200 lb per acre of small grain seed like rye into the clover and immediately mow at 3'-4" high for a typical throw& mow planting. Because of our northern winters the clover fades out in December, but the rye keeps going strong all winter (sans snow) to feed the herd, then in the spring I'll do the cycle all over again.
This small grain also serves the very important purpose of lowering the nitrogen and raising the carbon. This carbon/ nitrogen balance is also an enemy of mono-culture clover, it should optimally be around 24:1 for soil microbes to live and work properly, but growing only clover will raise nitrogen (lower carbon into the teens), which promotes grass growth and suppresses clover growth. The answer to this dilemma is to periodically grow some small grains, which will quickly raise the carbon ratio, which will then provide food for the clover and soil microbes. As I've described above with my rotation of spraying/ planting, balancing carbon/nitrogen levels in mon-culture clover is a dance between growing carbon from secondary crops and spraying herbicides that kill those secondary crops. If my clover has been very clean the year before, I will skip the spring herbicide application and let the small grain grow to maturity for the straw carbon value, and the seed head value for deer feed. The clover keeps growing just fine under the straw, and I'll mow this in late summer after the seed heads are gone.
Of course, all of this sounds like a lot of work, although it doesn't seem like work to me, for I enjoy it. If you don't care for the work, just let your clover patch go, and the grass/ clover mix will balance the soil on it's own. However, the clover will eventually get pretty sparse, which gives the deer a choice to search it out amongst the grasses or move to your neighbor's plot because he sprayed and the feed quality is better.
From my past experience the herbicide treatments like I did on Saturday will really make my clover pop, and by mid-June these plots should be knee-deep in ladino clover, and picture perfect, like something you'd see on the cover of Farm& Ranch magazine.
7f28c17057f1f6621a0d9b013f783ba0.jpg
13443e61dc48f87a3136bc15e8574a76.jpg
 
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You ever dealt with sedge grass in any of your clover? I've been able to keep my clover competitive with the forces of nature for three years now. I do have a patch of sedge that is a pain in my @$$. I'm gonna try topping it with a string trimmer every time I'm at the land to see if that can't slow it down and let something else fill in.

I will say, the sedge residue is top shelf. That stuff doesn't disappear quickly whatsoever. Good for cover, bad if you're trying to get close enough to germinate broadcasted early season cereals.
 
You ever dealt with sedge grass in any of your clover? I've been able to keep my clover competitive with the forces of nature for three years now. I do have a patch of sedge that is a pain in my @$$. I'm gonna try topping it with a string trimmer every time I'm at the land to see if that can't slow it down and let something else fill in.

I will say, the sedge residue is top shelf. That stuff doesn't disappear quickly whatsoever. Good for cover, bad if you're trying to get close enough to germinate broadcasted early season cereals.
The Imazethapyr 2sl that I mentioned above kills sedge grass. The difficult part is fitting Imazethapyr 2sl into my rotation, with the carryover it takes a large chunk of time out of a year that I can plant other stuff into clover. I use clover as a base, much like using flour as a cooking base, my clover patches are like a blank canvas, one great combo is to no-till oats into them in early spring, another is oats and rye or brassica in late summer. But I always have to program around herbicides, so my clover programs are always scheduled pretty full, transitioning from herbicides to interseeding, it seems like seasonally I'm always in a holding pattern, waiting for one component to finish out so that I can do the next. But by working in a shot of herbicide at least once every two years i don't see much of those difficult weeds like sedges.
 
I'm sorry, this has been covered I'm sure, but I couldn't find it. I have some pretty tough fescue I need to get rid of in established 3 year old clover. I'm planning to spray with clethodim in the next week; should I add some glyphosate to get a good kill? If so, how much? My plan is to wait a month and broadcast barley and rye and mow.
 
I'm sorry, this has been covered I'm sure, but I couldn't find it. I have some pretty tough fescue I need to get rid of in established 3 year old clover. I'm planning to spray with clethodim in the next week; should I add some glyphosate to get a good kill? If so, how much? My plan is to wait a month and broadcast barley and rye and mow.
I'd add 10-16 oz. per acre of roundup to the tank. Glyposate is very effective on grasses, and won't damage clover until about 32 oz. To kill clover with gly requires 44 oz. per acre.

As noted, spraying early is much more effective. I'd spray that asap, providing it's 55 degress at time of application.
 
Clover has always been a go to planting for me. Durana worked great. But, I'm turning more towards annual clovers now like crimson and short lived perennials like red with some bin oats thrown in during early fall when the red starts petering out. Annuals seem to just jump right up and get going, and that helps with weed competition. I'm trying to get away from chemical and mechanical controls on my plots as much as possible. Basically, just pouring the seed to areas in hopes that they outcompete what I don't plant. Not that I have anything against chemicals. I use them all the time. But, being an absentee landowner, I have less visits to my property, so coming up with ways to even have foodplots while still getting other things done is difficult. Who knows, I may even get to a point where the only thing I'm doing for plots is just going native and maintaining a few areas in one or 2 year early successional growth.
 
Clover has always been a go to planting for me. Durana worked great. But, I'm turning more towards annual clovers now like crimson and short lived perennials like red with some bin oats thrown in during early fall when the red starts petering out. Annuals seem to just jump right up and get going, and that helps with weed competition. I'm trying to get away from chemical and mechanical controls on my plots as much as possible. Basically, just pouring the seed to areas in hopes that they outcompete what I don't plant. Not that I have anything against chemicals. I use them all the time. But, being an absentee landowner, I have less visits to my property, so coming up with ways to even have foodplots while still getting other things done is difficult. Who knows, I may even get to a point where the only thing I'm doing for plots is just going native and maintaining a few areas in one or 2 year early successional growth.
Perennial clover is work to get going, and some planning, but worth it if you ask me. There's been a ton of chatter around the internet about frost seeding this spring. For the life of me, I can't figure out why more of that clover wasn't planted last fall. Once my new fall seeded white clover gets legs in the spring/early summer, it never looks back, ever. Drought, flood, hot, cold, it just works.

But anyway, properly maintained perennial is a powerhouse. I've grown to like fixation balansa in my blends. I've about settled to new zealand, fixation, and ladino. The blooms on the fixation are enormous, and that's a big deal for my focus on bugs.
 
I'd add 10-16 oz. per acre of roundup to the tank. Glyposate is very effective on grasses, and won't damage clover until about 32 oz. To kill clover with gly requires 44 oz. per acre.

As noted, spraying early is much more effective. I'd spray that asap, providing it's 55 degress at time of application.
Thanks!!
It's is still getting pretty cool at night, as long as the temp is right at application it's okay?
 
Perennial clover is work to get going, and some planning, but worth it if you ask me. There's been a ton of chatter around the internet about frost seeding this spring. For the life of me, I can't figure out why more of that clover wasn't planted last fall. Once my new fall seeded white clover gets legs in the spring/early summer, it never looks back, ever. Drought, flood, hot, cold, it just works.

But anyway, properly maintained perennial is a powerhouse. I've grown to like fixation balansa in my blends. I've about settled to new zealand, fixation, and ladino. The blooms on the fixation are enormous, and that's a big deal for my focus on bugs.
That's the thing for me... maintenance. I'm to a point where I want to only make one trip to work on plots and not have those take up all of my time while I'm there. There's a lot more acres on my property that aren't plots, and those need my attention more right now. With annual clovers and a grain, I don't have the mid year maintenance, but I provide food all year.
 
Thanks!!
It's is still getting pretty cool at night, as long as the temp is right at application it's okay?
Yes, the temperature only needs to be right at application. As soon as the herbicide has dried on the leaf it's finished working on the surface and already absorbed into the plant. Which is usually 15 minutes after application.
 
I was planning on tomorrow afternoon, but just getting the spray rig on our golf cart I realized how saturated everything is, part of the plot prolly still has standing water. I might have to wait until Sunday afternoon. :rolleyes:
 
That's the thing for me... maintenance. I'm to a point where I want to only make one trip to work on plots and not have those take up all of my time while I'm there. There's a lot more acres on my property that aren't plots, and those need my attention more right now. With annual clovers and a grain, I don't have the mid year maintenance, but I provide food all year.
I went perennial for the lack of chores. One mowing, spread some cereals and gypsum, and walk away until next year. This year though I'll have to do something with a weedy spot. Can't ignore that any longer.

I am thinking of cutting out the gypsum at year 5 if all is still working.
 
Thanks!!
It's is still getting pretty cool at night, as long as the temp is right at application it's okay?
And the weeds are actually green/growing. At camp in 6a, it's still to early, but at home in 6b, the timing seems about right. (Author is in 6b too)
 
This past Saturday I threw a 200 gallon tote of water on the back of my truck and sprayed some of my small clover plots for weeds. This is probably the most important thing that I do all year for these plots, in fact, it may be the only thing I do all year for some of these plots. A food plot doesn't need to be perfect to attract and feed deer, but if someone has a hankering for a picture perfect clover plot year round, now is the time to act, and here is the secret on how to do it.
First of all, spring is a good time to spread fertilizer, however, clover will usually grow just fine on poor soils, and, while fertilizer on clover plots should be bought up to the spec's of soil tests to raise the nutritional feed value for the deer, it's not the top priority for me. And springtime, as well as any other time, is a good time to spread lime, also not my top priority, and, since springtime is busy for me I usually spread lime at other times of the year.
The main thing that keeps clover from growing well is competition from weeds, especially grass, and the best time of year to deal with that is early spring, right when the weeds start growing, but before they are taller than 3 inches. Spraying herbicide shouldn't be done when it's colder than 55°, so between the temps and the weeds being small allows only a small window of opportunity, and for me in zone 6b that's right now.
Clethodim, Butyrac 200, and several other herbicides are great for clover, but my weapon of choice right now is Imazethapyr 2sl, I was using an ATV with a 25 gallon sprayer on my smaller 1 acre plots, 48 oz of AMS, 16 oz of crop oil, and 4-6 oz of Imazethapyr 2sl per acre was the mix, if I'd have had some tough grasses to deal with I'd have added 10-16 oz. of roundup to the tank.
In early fall I will spread 200 lb per acre of small grain seed like rye into the clover and immediately mow at 3'-4" high for a typical throw& mow planting. Because of our northern winters the clover fades out in December, but the rye keeps going strong all winter (sans snow) to feed the herd, then in the spring I'll do the cycle all over again.
This small grain also serves the very important purpose of lowering the nitrogen and raising the carbon. This carbon/ nitrogen balance is also an enemy of mono-culture clover, it should optimally be around 24:1 for soil microbes to live and work properly, but growing only clover will raise nitrogen (lower carbon into the teens), which promotes grass growth and suppresses clover growth. The answer to this dilemma is to periodically grow some small grains, which will quickly raise the carbon ratio, which will then provide food for the clover and soil microbes. As I've described above with my rotation of spraying/ planting, balancing carbon/nitrogen levels in mon-culture clover is a dance between growing carbon from secondary crops and spraying herbicides that kill those secondary crops. If my clover has been very clean the year before, I will skip the spring herbicide application and let the small grain grow to maturity for the straw carbon value, and the seed head value for deer feed. The clover keeps growing just fine under the straw, and I'll mow this in late summer after the seed heads are gone.
Of course, all of this sounds like a lot of work, although it doesn't seem like work to me, for I enjoy it. If you don't care for the work, just let your clover patch go, and the grass/ clover mix will balance the soil on it's own. However, the clover will eventually get pretty sparse, which gives the deer a choice to search it out amongst the grasses or move to your neighbor's plot because he sprayed and the feed quality is better.
From my past experience the herbicide treatments like I did on Saturday will really make my clover pop, and by mid-June these plots should be knee-deep in ladino clover, and picture perfect, like something you'd see on the cover of Farm& Ranch magazine.
7f28c17057f1f6621a0d9b013f783ba0.jpg
13443e61dc48f87a3136bc15e8574a76.jpg

Now that there is a smart man. Pretty much all one needs to know about clover plots.
I don’t spray as early as you since I want the WR and WW to continue at least till May for couple reasons , but can’t argue w your timing


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Thanks mennonitman for the tips, I'm doing my thunder spraying tomorrow. Finally have a non rainy, low wind day to get after it. In the low 60s tomorrow and 70s monday. I used it last year but was too late as I had to wait until the new clover and chicory was developed enough. It should rock this time.
 
Now that there is a smart man. Pretty much all one needs to know about clover plots.
I don’t spray as early as you since I want the WR and WW to continue at least till May for couple reasons , but can’t argue w your timing


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
With your wheat, rye, and clover you might want to consider this; I have had great success in the past with spraying a combination small grain and clover plot very early in the spring with Butyrac200. The allopathic trait of grain keeps grasses at bay, and the 2,4dB takes care of the tough broadleaf weeds that can be difficult later in the season. I'm not a huge fan of chemicals, and that's the very reason to use them earlier, because early in the growing season a little herbicide goes a long way. Once weeds are allowed to grow big a lot of herbicide can be dumped on them and they just shake it off and keep growing even bigger and ultimately re-stocking the soil seedbank, requiring even more radical weed control measures.
And Butyrac200 is pretty cheap.
 
Thanks mennonitman for the tips, I'm doing my thunder spraying tomorrow. Finally have a non rainy, low wind day to get after it. In the low 60s tomorrow and 70s monday. I used it last year but was too late as I had to wait until the new clover and chicory was developed enough. It should rock this time.
Let me know how it works for you.
 
I don’t spray but every 3 years or so as the grasses and weeds do t bother me much. Problem w butyrac is chicory is sensitive as are the brassica. And since I allow my brassica to reseed along w reseeding grains , it could be a problem. I liked Imox I tried at 6oz/ac but cost wise Cleth w a shot of Gly works cheaper.
Your technique is set up better for true clover maintenance of which I kinda like my ugly multi culture /grasses/weeds plots. Your use of grains is spot on but I only use 50#/ac if fall overseed ing. My plots now are such most this grain and brassica are reseeding themselves each fall within the clover. Different directions we take.


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Clover has always been a go to planting for me. Durana worked great. But, I'm turning more towards annual clovers now like crimson and short lived perennials like red with some bin oats thrown in during early fall when the red starts petering out. Annuals seem to just jump right up and get going, and that helps with weed competition. I'm trying to get away from chemical and mechanical controls on my plots as much as possible. Basically, just pouring the seed to areas in hopes that they outcompete what I don't plant. Not that I have anything against chemicals. I use them all the time. But, being an absentee landowner, I have less visits to my property, so coming up with ways to even have foodplots while still getting other things done is difficult. Who knows, I may even get to a point where the only thing I'm doing for plots is just going native and maintaining a few areas in one or 2 year early successional growth.
I'm not trying to tell you what to do, and if what you're doing works well for you, by all means keep doing it, but in my opinion properly managed perennial clover like ladino probably takes less time and money per days of available deer food yearly than any other food plot species and definitely beats annual clovers for plots that are in clover year after year. We have several one acre clover plots that are 5 plus years old that we put in less than one hour per year for upkeep, and have a continuous high quality clover stand that is tops on the deer preference list at 25-30% protein and 70% digestibility, lasting from March through December in zone 6. The 1 hour spent is the early spring herbicide application, and it's good for another year. If you are an absentee landowner id consider perennial clover as a must have. And restarting annual clover every year means a lot of unnecessary tillage that takes time and money degrades the soil, plants weed seeds, and destroys a lot of beneficial fungi, and organic matter. Unless someone lives in the south and the summers are too hot for clover,, ladino is possibly the best deer food plot species evet.
 
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