Clover understorey trial

chester · Mar 11, 2019

Would like to try setting up a semi permanent understory of clover in my arable rotation.Not having much luck searching for info on here,any links would be appreciated.
The aim would be to sow it after vinning peas in late June early July and get it established and weed free by October and then DD wheat into it .Hopefully this would help improve soil structure which we would exploit later in the rotation when we grow potatoes and fix some N and suppress weeds and act as a carpet to allow later drilling.
Bit concerned about the prospect of a delayed harvest and or a lodged crop and the clover making combining difficult,dose any one have any expeience?
If it could be made to work it would be a win win for the grower with reduced costs and the environment through reduced pesticide usage and reduced soil erosion as well as building soil organic carbon and fertility,sounds to good to be true but I believe we need to look at a more intergrated approach if we want to farm sustainably in the future.

jack6480 · Mar 11, 2019

Also trying this but undersowing spring barley with it and see what happens

jonnyjon · Mar 11, 2019

I've been thinking about this for a few years, have tried drilling s barley into a patch of white clover and few times but clover out competes every time. Plan to try a very small clover and drill into it in the autumn to c what happens

jack6480 · Mar 11, 2019

Whats best price you can get clover for?

juke · Mar 11, 2019

White clover is probably the best option so it doesn't get to big , we have tried a couple of times with it broadcasting on as we drill spring cereals with mixed results .

Our idea was to have to have it established for the following winter crop, unfortunately the pre em for the wheat really put pay to the clover understory .. In our case the establishment wasn't good enough to forget about the herbicide in the following wheat crop.

juke · Mar 11, 2019

jack6480 said:
Whats best price you can get clover for?

@Great In Grass

Regenerator · Mar 12, 2019

On subject of clover establishment— has anyone oversown clover through their sprayer after removing all filters etc.
We would like to oversow 150ha of winter rye and don’t want to purchase further equipment.

Badshot · Mar 12, 2019

These beans will have a clover understory
The rooks had a fair go, and now rabbits, so they're a bit thin in places, but an interesting little experiment

New Puritan · Mar 16, 2019

Badshot said:
View attachment 775718
These beans will have a clover understory
The rooks had a fair go, and now rabbits, so they're a bit thin in places, but an interesting little experiment

How will you sow the clover?

Kiwi Pete · Mar 17, 2019

The best way to encourage clover to behave is to use its fantastic memory- park sheep on it whenever there isn't a crop, and it thus adapts to a lower smaller habit.

It takes a long time for a perennial plant to forgive or forget past sins, so to make this system work you really need sheep or goats to overgraze the clover... even if it means offering free grazing or similar, if you don't have scope to run a capital mob.

Graze it out, drill, park them on it for another week, shut the gate.
Look at aiding tillering in a similar way, but lighter.. and also look at them being your PGR.
It also really does go a long way towards fungal control as no bare soil for the raindrops to splash onto leaves... and in summer it helps regulate moisture

Badshot · Mar 17, 2019

New Puritan said:
How will you sow the clover?

It's there now, I planted the beans into an old grass ley, the clover has survived from that.

hendrebc · Mar 17, 2019

I think it was @Hartwig that was doing this already

Fred · Mar 17, 2019

chester said:
Would like to try setting up a semi permanent understory of clover in my arable rotation.Not having much luck searching for info on here,any links would be appreciated.
The aim would be to sow it after vinning peas in late June early July and get it established and weed free by October and then DD wheat into it .Hopefully this would help improve soil structure which we would exploit later in the rotation when we grow potatoes and fix some N and suppress weeds and act as a carpet to allow later drilling.
Bit concerned about the prospect of a delayed harvest and or a lodged crop and the clover making combining difficult,dose any one have any expeience?
If it could be made to work it would be a win win for the grower with reduced costs and the environment through reduced pesticide usage and reduced soil erosion as well as building soil organic carbon and fertility,sounds to good to be true but I believe we need to look at a more intergrated approach if we want to farm sustainably in the future.

Oakbank have experimented with this , as has @Goldilocks on here , I tried and failed years ago , however my agronomist has a farm running a very successful system

Simon Chiles · Mar 17, 2019

chester said:
Would like to try setting up a semi permanent understory of clover in my arable rotation.Not having much luck searching for info on here,any links would be appreciated.
The aim would be to sow it after vinning peas in late June early July and get it established and weed free by October and then DD wheat into it .Hopefully this would help improve soil structure which we would exploit later in the rotation when we grow potatoes and fix some N and suppress weeds and act as a carpet to allow later drilling.
Bit concerned about the prospect of a delayed harvest and or a lodged crop and the clover making combining difficult,dose any one have any expeience?
If it could be made to work it would be a win win for the grower with reduced costs and the environment through reduced pesticide usage and reduced soil erosion as well as building soil organic carbon and fertility,sounds to good to be true but I believe we need to look at a more intergrated approach if we want to farm sustainably in the future.

Personally I think I’d try planting the clover the autumn before the vining peas so that you’d have kick started the biology before drilling them straight in. Leave the clover after the peas and whack the wheat into it the next autumn, it’s then up to you whether you take the clover out next spring or leave it under the wheat. Either way I’d stick about 100 kg N/ha less on the wheat than you normally would put on.

DrWazzock · Mar 20, 2019

We find clover has to be sown in the spring if it's to get big enough to survive the next winter. It likes phosphate. August is usually too late for it to get going before winter here.

We generally introduce it into the rotation in an undersown grass ley in spring barley.

Spraying off the grass ley with glyphosate does leave the clover still alive. You then have a good start for a bit of direct drilling into the dead grass sward and living established clover. Use a small white clover, not the agressive red type.

I did direct drill OSR into such a clover ley, having sprayed out the grass with glyphosate. I think a later herbicide nobbled the clover as I wasn't intending to keep it. Sounds like it could be a good idea though, as long as the drill can cut the mat. Ungrazed clover can be quite competitive though. I'd be wanting to graze it back a bit before drilling.

soilsaver · Mar 20, 2019

DrWazzock said:
We find clover has to be sown in the spring if it's to get big enough to survive the next winter. It likes phosphate. August is usually too late for it to get going before winter here.

We generally introduce it into the rotation in an undersown grass ley in spring barley.

Spraying off the grass ley with glyphosate does leave the clover still alive. You then have a good start for a bit of direct drilling into the dead grass sward and living established clover. Use a small white clover, not the agressive red type.

I did direct drill OSR into such a clover ley, having sprayed out the grass with glyphosate. I think a later herbicide nobbled the clover as I wasn't intending to keep it. Sounds like it could be a good idea though, as long as the drill can cut the mat. Ungrazed clover can be quite competitive though. I'd be wanting to graze it back a bit before drilling.

did rape find moisture to germinate with the clover well established.??

Ritchie · Mar 20, 2019

Regenerator said:
On subject of clover establishment— has anyone oversown clover through their sprayer after removing all filters etc.
We would like to oversow 150ha of winter rye and don’t want to purchase further equipment.

Oversown clover with a slurry tanker on very old poor permenent pasture, it was not a vacuum tanker but a self fill one. Put in a couple of jam jars full into the slurry and agitate then spread onto field.

Ritchie

DrWazzock · Mar 20, 2019

soilsaver said:
did rape find moisture to germinate with the clover well established.??

Yes. We had grazed hard before spraying off the grass and drilling so maybe the transpiration was low. Plant population of OSR was a bit low on the heavy land due to it being hard as concrete at drilling but was very good (too high) on the sand. It yielded well.

Glyphosate does knock the clover but doesn't kill it.

DrWazzock · Mar 20, 2019

Might be drilling OSR into sprayed off clover/grass ley this summer but this time behind grassland subsoiler legs to get better establishment in heavy land.

New Puritan · Apr 14, 2019

@chester - did you / are you going ahead with this?

I am trying a bit this year. I put a mix of white clover & yellow trefoil in under spring wheat. I only did it for half a field, partly as it's expensive stuff and partly so I can see if there is a difference, in a fairly crude way.

I used this mix from Cotwold Seeds.

Happy to report back on how it goes if anyone is interested?

Clover understorey trial

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