Thought i had while going to sleep last night....

David

Active Member
In the normal sequencing of planting a fall clover plot, do we unintentionally kill a large amount if not all of the existing clover seed bank?

My sequence this year....

late July disc
early august disc
mid august spray with gly

in all my efforts I am focused on killing existing weeds, stimulating the seed bank and waiting for some emergence of new weeds, killing those etc.

didn't i just kill off a lot of clover?
 
Yes, you may have killed some, but you buried most of them and some will germinate when the soil temperatures get cooler. Mother Nature tries not to let something germinate, when it is sure to fail. Right now, I assume where you are, it's too hot for most clovers to germinate. Weeds are a different story. Lots of clovers prefer soil temperatures in the 60's and that occurs when the night time temps are below that. Right now, in middle Georgia, my soil temps are around 78 deg. F.

What type of clover did you plant, which will determine how much viable seed you have? To really bring back clover from seed, a light discing, in the fall will usually do the trick. Less weed competition then too.

Germination.JPG
 
Are you starting a new seeding or trying to add to an existing seeding? Not quite sure where this is coming from or going to so a little more info from you would be helpful.


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i planted crimson and arrow-leaf.

i am starting a new plot in the same location as last years. i am still too timid to rely on the reseeding efforts of last years clover, so i am starting from scratch. i might leave a small area this year without adding any new clover seed to see what sprouts on its own.

thanks
 
Big Food Plot 7-10-16-2.jpg Cool season seed.JPG
Consider changing up your mix of clovers. I feel that most of your clover seed is buried for this year, so no sense in trying to revive it. If you were to go with a cereal grain (rye, wheat and or oats) and then add a mix of crimson clover, a ladino clover and a medium red clover, you (more than likely) still have clover in your plot right now, feeding the deer. Assuming soil ph and nutrients are there.

My plots are between Macon and Columbus Ga. I planted diakon radishes which were worked over in the fall, the crimson clover, which germinated early was seeded out and done in early April, the oats seeded out and fell in May, the white clover is still hanging around a little and the medium red clover is still producing. The deer are still working the plots good. Because most of the clovers, in my area act as an annual, I will be replanting this fall, but I will leave some medium red clover stand, just to cover my bases, in case we have another drought.
 
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Consider changing up your mix of clovers. I feel that most of your clover seed is buried for this year, so no sense in trying to revive it. If you were to go with a cereal grain (rye, wheat and or oats) and then add a mix of crimson clover, a ladino clover and a medium red clover, you (more than likely) still have clover in your plot right now, feeding the deer. Assuming soil ph and nutrients are there.

My plots are between Macon and Columbus Ga. I planted diakon radishes which were worked over in the fall, the crimson clover, which germinated early was seeded out and done in early April, the oats seeded out and fell in May, the white clover is still hanging around a little and the medium red clover is still producing. The deer are still working the plots good. Because most of the clovers, in my area act as an annual, I will be replanting this fall, but I will leave some medium red clover stand, just to cover my bases, in case we have another drought.
Good idea I hope we don't have the repeat of last years dry spell. I planted some clover at the start of bow season last year and we got a good rain and it came up great and then we had the drought and I had to replant.
 
View attachment 8858 View attachment 8857
Consider changing up your mix of clovers. I feel that most of your clover seed is buried for this year, so no sense in trying to revive it. If you were to go with a cereal grain (rye, wheat and or oats) and then add a mix of crimson clover, a ladino clover and a medium red clover, you (more than likely) still have clover in your plot right now, feeding the deer. Assuming soil ph and nutrients are there.

My plots are between Macon and Columbus Ga. I planted diakon radishes which were worked over in the fall, the crimson clover, which germinated early was seeded out and done in early April, the oats seeded out and fell in May, the white clover is still hanging around a little and the medium red clover is still producing. The deer are still working the plots good. Because most of the clovers, in my area act as an annual, I will be replanting this fall, but I will leave some medium red clover stand, just to cover my bases, in case we have another drought.

Don't you guys in the South have hog problems ? I very rarely let my fall grains get to the " ripe head " stage before mowing and discing under. If I let the seed heads ripen, I call every hog around it seems and invite them to supper. How do y'all handle that or do you have that problem ?
 
Well, all kidding aside, we do have hogs and they have moved in to our area within the last couple of years, but nothing horrible, like farther south where field crops are raised. Where I am is more pine plantation.

Although they did come thru and tear up one of my clover plots .... turned it over like a plowed field, but then they went and knocked over some of our feeders, then moved on elsewhere. They will returned and we hope to bring a few home with us, this year.
 

We have so many that I can't keep up with their rooting damage. Fortunately, they don't root much in my food plots, but they root up the areas I mow and travel in some places. We trap and shoot, mostly shoot, but they keep acoming ! I don't eat the nasty buzzards, but even if I did, there's no way we could eat all we kill. Another place I hunt, they are twice or three times as thick. Before I penned my feeders, ( only have two ), they hung out for hours and no deer would come around. I built feeder pens and slowed that way down.

Sorry OP, didn't mean to hijack, but that's what I was thinking about last night !:(
 
No worries.

I too have hogs, but the less I bait, the less they are around.

They don't ever bother my plots.

And thanks for all the help about the clover germination temps. I have a lot to learn, every once and a while I have a thought that won't leave my head.
 
In the normal sequencing of planting a fall clover plot, do we unintentionally kill a large amount if not all of the existing clover seed bank?

My sequence this year....

late July disc
early august disc
mid august spray with gly

in all my efforts I am focused on killing existing weeds, stimulating the seed bank and waiting for some emergence of new weeds, killing those etc.

didn't i just kill off a lot of clover?
Clover is very hard to kill with Gly, it'll be the last thing surviving a spraying, It takes about 44oz. per acre to kill clover. So if I want to replant an existing clover field I'll spray with 10 oz. clthodium, 10 oz. Roundup and there won't be anything left but clover. And roundup won't kill ungerminated seeds.
 
Clover is very hard to kill with Gly, it'll be the last thing surviving a spraying, It takes about 44oz. per acre to kill clover. So if I want to replant an existing clover field I'll spray with 10 oz. clthodium, 10 oz. Roundup and there won't be anything left but clover. And roundup won't kill ungerminated seeds.
What does the clethodim kill that the roundup does not?
 
Clethodim is a grass selective herbicide. It kills only grass (Orchard, fescue, wheat, rye, oats, corn ...... which are all part of the grass family)
 
What does the clethodim kill that the roundup does not?
The 10 oz. Roundup is to light to do a 100% kill on grass, but does a good job on non-legume broadleaf's. The clethodim cleans up the grass that the roundup doesn't quite kill. Usually the number one problem weed in clover is grass, which is a direct competitor to the clover. You can also kill broadleaf weeds in clover with the Thunder/Pursuit/Slay product but it's very expensive stuff. The 8-10oz. clethodim-10oz. glyphosate combination will do about the same thing for a lot cheaper. Hope this makes sense. Allen
 
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We've been putting down copious clover seed for years in our plots (crimson, arrowleaf, Durana, Osceola, Patriot, Regal Graze, Lousiana S-1, New Zealand, etc) but we don't get much if any reseeding. We do light tillage for fall planting and that seems to wipe out any first year clover. You would think there are a billion clover seeds in the plots due to all the white clover flowers, but I guess it doesn't go to hard seed. Same thing with WR....never have any reseeding the next year. One year with Eagles, we got a lot of fall reseeding but the frost wiped it out.
Florida plotting is not for the faint of heart (or the poor)!
 
We've been putting down copious clover seed for years in our plots (crimson, arrowleaf, Durana, Osceola, Patriot, Regal Graze, Lousiana S-1, New Zealand, etc) but we don't get much if any reseeding. We do light tillage for fall planting and that seems to wipe out any first year clover. You would think there are a billion clover seeds in the plots due to all the white clover flowers, but I guess it doesn't go to hard seed. Same thing with WR....never have any reseeding the next year. One year with Eagles, we got a lot of fall reseeding but the frost wiped it out.
Florida plotting is not for the faint of heart (or the poor)!

Just a thought, but if your clover and rye really aren't producing any seeds, it could be a sign of a potassium deficiency. Have you fertilized or had a soil test?


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