clover understorey

IEM

Member
Location
Essex
thinking about doing a trial with this on a couple of hectares:
1. Establish white clover (probably try to undersow into winter wheat)
2. Bale straw
3. Graze clover post harvest with fattening lambs
4. Graze clover hard pre drilling
5. Direct drill barley in spring
6. Apply herbicide to deal with weeds and give clover a headache
7. Harvest barley
8. Bale straw
9. Repeat from point 3.

Main aims would be to
increase soil fertility
reduce growing costs (herbicide, fertiliser)
improve establishment by improving soil structure compared to DD into cover crop established post harvest
improve soil biology (continuous cover/less chem/fert)
double use from field (sheep grazing should be worth approx £70/ha to me)

I can see managing clover when the barley is growing could be tricky and it may need to be an older less vigorous variety.

Has anyone tried anything like this in the UK?
Can anyone tell me why it wont work?
Also interested in suggestions for which herbicide would work pre barley emergence and whether barley/clover are the right crops to use for this.
 
Oh yes, the perpetual motion machine many of us here think or at least dream about....... :)
Utopia can become reality one day, we probably just have to try it and not be too religious. My actual idea about that is to try it with berseem clover as undersowing together with spring cereals / spring beans and then graze it and slice some winter cereals into it, waiting for the frost killing the clover and getting away with no herbicide for that crop, hopefully lots of left over nitrogen and some fat sheep...... :scratchhead: Just my idea to that, more as a break than perpetual motion though.

How bad is the herbicide use in spring cereals restricted with clover undersown ?? Would it be easier to grow winter cereals with good pre-ems and spread berseem over it in spring ?? Some blackgrass here, too .....
 

IEM

Member
Location
Essex
Thanks
The main thought was to have continual living cover. I don't suppose you could carry on growing spring barley forever but maybe just graze for a full year occasionally to help with weeds etc? Or do it for 5 years and assess effect on soil fertility etc.
Typically we just use pre me herbicides for spring barley, blackgrass not a big issue here. The clover and the grazing would certainly help with weed control.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
It should work very well, most wholecrop cereals around here are largely what you describe.
Most will go for fairly standard "sheepy" clover, as @Great In Grass said, a medium leaf variety. Scrooges though, always something cheap and cheerful ;) a variety with more stolon density will do more of what you want and persist for ages, the more upright ones don't like sheep as much.
 

damaged

Member
Location
Gloucestershire
Clover remaining after notill ww.
20160905_131752.jpg
 

damaged

Member
Location
Gloucestershire
It was a mix of two red and white, three yr silage mix. Notill wheat combined and bailed straw. No till barley, wholecropped as it was going flat.
Moved surface to make use of 3 month cleaning window. Perhaps a mistake. Second barley or linseed next.
 

damaged

Member
Location
Gloucestershire
My experience suggests that having a go is well worth while, but without getting bogged down in the detail, a use of whole croping for livestock is a financially sound option at points in the rotation.
 
If my clover which is suffering from chem damage continues i might be doing somethings similar....however id prob take a silage cut...then sow spring cereal...you could alternate between oats and barley...

If you have lost of sheep...you can do most things...

Barley going over and having to harvest low could be a concern...

It would be doable here for sure...

Ant...
 

AF Salers

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
York, UK
@Fat hen a mix of prostrate growing small leaf white clovers is possible. Though you would need to establish it as soon as the previous crop was harvested or prior to it being harvested. Unfortunately if targeting BG I doubt it would survive a nearby load of pre-end.

Despite having a good stand of well established white clover post a grazing ley followed by spring beans I have lost the clover in the winter wheat this year. Used as little herbicide as possible but despite this the combination of chem & shading from a very good ww has killed it all off.
 

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