White Crimson Clover

THE LLC

Well-Known Member
I know the other day on a thread we were talking about white-flowered crimson clover. Well I found this in one of my crimson patches a while ago.

White-Flowered Crimson.JPG
 
I hated to do it, but I elected to spray a one acre field of crimson clover at the farm yesterday due to all the wild ryegrass coming up in it. I was shocked at the amount of crimson clover in that field blooming white. Apparently that isn't such a totally rare occurrence.
 
I have let all my land except lanes grow this year in hopes for some Turkey nests. I may pay a Rye Grass price
 
I just received 25 lbs of white cloud crimson clover from Hancock Seed. Gonna see what happens. Mainly planting it for the bees.
 
Since you gentlemen are talking about clover and bees, I thought I'd just add an observation I had today. I have been planting seven apple trees I got from Cummins Nursery. Because of my COPD it is an all day job to plant 4 trees one day and the other 3 plus 2 DCO's the next day. today I was really having a hard time. Heat and humidity together are almost unbearable for me. I was taking one of my many breaks and just sitting on the bucket of my tractor trying to relax. The clover in the area is booming. White flowers everywhere. I had been sittiing for maybe 20 minutes when it dawned on me that I had not seen a single pollinator of any kind. I purposely sat there for 30 more minutes jusst concentrating on seeing bees or something. NO GO. In about 45 minutes, I had not seen a single insect of any kind. I think this all began last spring when Duke Power had a contractor come along the ROW's and spray prior to doing some work on them later last summer. They did manage to overspray and kill all my chestnuts and most of my Burr Oaks. NOw I think that whatever they used killed off all the local bees also.
 
If you keep bees, you need to treat them for Varrora Mites. I read somewhere that a hive left untreated, will die off in about 1.5 years. Feral colonies have the same problem with few showing a natural resistance.
 
Dang you guys can make things more confusing than ID can be already. I'm finding some red colored white clover and some chartruse red clover and planting it with my blue/purple blooming alfalfa and really screw things up! I can play this confusion game too.:cool:
So what is the point seriously of a white, crimson clover? Is it inbred with WC to pick up some of its characteristics?
 
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