Throw and Mow Advice
- Thread starter Dmumford
- Start date
yoderjac
Well-Known Member
It may depend on your location and objectives. First, I generally don't use alfalfa. I find that it fills pretty much the same niche as clover and is harder to establish. In my area, and with my soils, it has no advantage in attraction or anything over clover. I typically use Winter Rye as my nurse crop. In my area, deer don't seem to show a strong preference for one specific cereal over another in general. Each has moments of preference as they each peak at different times. WR is inexpensive, does well in my soils, and has some chemical weed suppression. Triticale has a combination of traits of the major cereal grains.
Balsana is and annual clover, medium red is a short-lived perennial, and Alfalfa is a perennial. In my area, I generally use Crimson Clover when I want an annual. I tried Balsana. It was more expensive and didn't do as well in my soils. It did not have a preference value over Crimson for me, so I went back to Crimson. Some clover seed blends encourage spring planting (I have no idea why) and they typically include an annual with their perennials. An annual clover comes up faster than perennial clover. So, their theory is that when planted in the spring the annual clover will act as a nurse crop taking up space that grasses and weeds would take up while the perennial clover is establishing its root system. I find that in my area, planting clover in the spring, regardless of technique, results in a much weedier field much sooner than fall planted perennial clovers using a WR nurse crop.
So, in general, I don't mix annual and perennial clovers.
To fill the niche that Alfalfa fills, I generally use Durana clover. It is slow to establish but does fine when fall planted with a WR nurse crop. I generally use an annual clover like Crimson (which acts as a re-seeding annual in my area) as part of a fall mix. These fields are generally for fall attraction. While I do get some crimson clover in the fall, the Winter Rye and GHR/PTT in my fall mix are meant to provide the in-season attraction. The real purpose of the CC in that mix is for the following spring. When the WR gets rank and the deer avoid it, the CC comes on strong. It lasts trough last spring in my area. My plot is covered with deer food until I plant warm season annuals for summer.
Some years, I will "rest" certain plots. I will basically let them go for a year or two and let native weeds take over. This gives them a period with no herbicide use to help restore the broad mix of native weeds. When I plan to "rest" a field, I will plant it in the fall using my regular fall mix, but I will substitute medium red clover for the CC. Medium red clover comes up the next spring like CC, but will last for about 2 seasons. I just let the medium red naturally be overtaken by weeds in year two and the field starts it rest period.
So, in general, your proposed mix has a lot of stuff in it and some of that stuff seems to overlap in purpose to me, but we are probably in different locations and we may have different objectives. I typically have 2 objectives for plots. I have small sub-acre kill plots that we generally maintain in perennial clover. I also have large feeding plots. These are generally planted in the spring with a mix like sunn hemp and buckwheat. These provide nutrition during the summer stress period in our area and fix N into the soil for fall. In the fall, the same plot is planted with annuals, typically WR, CC, and brassica (PTT and/or GHR). These plots are meant for fall attraction as well as winter nutrition. In zone 7A, deer hit the PTT bulbs after the season and we often get periods warm enough for WR to generate new growth.
I would suggest you think about what your objectives are for a plot and then consider what role each crop fills. In your location and with your soils, the answers may be different than mine. It does not hurt to experiment, but I would try to keep things simple. Unless you have lots of planted acreage, mixing your own crops gets more and more expensive as you add more crops. For economy, I typically by my seed in 50 lb bags and mix my own. Some seed like brassica needs to be planted at a pretty low rate in a mix. A 50 pound bag covers many, many acres. Variety is good, but there are diminishing returns as you add more and more crops to a mix.
Those are my thoughts. Whatever you decide to plant, come back and let us know how it worked for you. We are all learning as we go!
Balsana is and annual clover, medium red is a short-lived perennial, and Alfalfa is a perennial. In my area, I generally use Crimson Clover when I want an annual. I tried Balsana. It was more expensive and didn't do as well in my soils. It did not have a preference value over Crimson for me, so I went back to Crimson. Some clover seed blends encourage spring planting (I have no idea why) and they typically include an annual with their perennials. An annual clover comes up faster than perennial clover. So, their theory is that when planted in the spring the annual clover will act as a nurse crop taking up space that grasses and weeds would take up while the perennial clover is establishing its root system. I find that in my area, planting clover in the spring, regardless of technique, results in a much weedier field much sooner than fall planted perennial clovers using a WR nurse crop.
So, in general, I don't mix annual and perennial clovers.
To fill the niche that Alfalfa fills, I generally use Durana clover. It is slow to establish but does fine when fall planted with a WR nurse crop. I generally use an annual clover like Crimson (which acts as a re-seeding annual in my area) as part of a fall mix. These fields are generally for fall attraction. While I do get some crimson clover in the fall, the Winter Rye and GHR/PTT in my fall mix are meant to provide the in-season attraction. The real purpose of the CC in that mix is for the following spring. When the WR gets rank and the deer avoid it, the CC comes on strong. It lasts trough last spring in my area. My plot is covered with deer food until I plant warm season annuals for summer.
Some years, I will "rest" certain plots. I will basically let them go for a year or two and let native weeds take over. This gives them a period with no herbicide use to help restore the broad mix of native weeds. When I plan to "rest" a field, I will plant it in the fall using my regular fall mix, but I will substitute medium red clover for the CC. Medium red clover comes up the next spring like CC, but will last for about 2 seasons. I just let the medium red naturally be overtaken by weeds in year two and the field starts it rest period.
So, in general, your proposed mix has a lot of stuff in it and some of that stuff seems to overlap in purpose to me, but we are probably in different locations and we may have different objectives. I typically have 2 objectives for plots. I have small sub-acre kill plots that we generally maintain in perennial clover. I also have large feeding plots. These are generally planted in the spring with a mix like sunn hemp and buckwheat. These provide nutrition during the summer stress period in our area and fix N into the soil for fall. In the fall, the same plot is planted with annuals, typically WR, CC, and brassica (PTT and/or GHR). These plots are meant for fall attraction as well as winter nutrition. In zone 7A, deer hit the PTT bulbs after the season and we often get periods warm enough for WR to generate new growth.
I would suggest you think about what your objectives are for a plot and then consider what role each crop fills. In your location and with your soils, the answers may be different than mine. It does not hurt to experiment, but I would try to keep things simple. Unless you have lots of planted acreage, mixing your own crops gets more and more expensive as you add more crops. For economy, I typically by my seed in 50 lb bags and mix my own. Some seed like brassica needs to be planted at a pretty low rate in a mix. A 50 pound bag covers many, many acres. Variety is good, but there are diminishing returns as you add more and more crops to a mix.
Those are my thoughts. Whatever you decide to plant, come back and let us know how it worked for you. We are all learning as we go!
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