- Location
- South Molton
Well composted and you can do it between cutsMountain of muck, gets a good application at the back end
Red Clover
- Thread starter M-J-G
- Start date
What happens after 4 years?with a coat of slurry every now and again it will for 4 years
2nd year of growing it here...
- Location
- somerset
verticulum wilt, a disease that seriously affects growth, 5 yr gap between r/c is recommended. To be honest, never seen it, so l don't know how bad etc.
The ideal, would be resistant varieties, similar with lucerne, rec 5 yr break. Unless you have plenty of acres, it does restrict you, seriously.
Grown lucerne, and r/c straight, brilliant, great crops, but growing maize as well, cut into available grazing grass, simply didn't have the acreage, so chose maize, right choice ? or not ? still not quite sure.
its one of the reasons we are trying cut only leys, hoping we can higher protein silage off them, one is a r/c based ley, this is year 3, we will have to see what happens yr 4. The others have w/c in them. And we are 'playing' with other types of clover/legumes, as well. The potential savings from legumes, in N and protein, are large, just need to learn the best way, to max them.
The ideal, would be resistant varieties, similar with lucerne, rec 5 yr break. Unless you have plenty of acres, it does restrict you, seriously.
Grown lucerne, and r/c straight, brilliant, great crops, but growing maize as well, cut into available grazing grass, simply didn't have the acreage, so chose maize, right choice ? or not ? still not quite sure.
its one of the reasons we are trying cut only leys, hoping we can higher protein silage off them, one is a r/c based ley, this is year 3, we will have to see what happens yr 4. The others have w/c in them. And we are 'playing' with other types of clover/legumes, as well. The potential savings from legumes, in N and protein, are large, just need to learn the best way, to max them.
ollie989898
Member
It's the same as with grass leys. It's not like the plants count the number of years and decide to die, they just seem to exhaust themselves or be dominated by weed grasses. It can live a long time but red clover needs careful management to get the best from it long term. It's very slow to get going in the spring and you can find other stuff gets on and tries to grow ahead of it. I've seen some topped earlier in the spring to give the clover a fighting chance which seemed to have given it a second wind but it was ploughed up after it was mowed later.
Red clover doesn't like punishment and definitely does not enjoy being cut close to the deck. It definitely likes soils rich in P and K.
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
muck?
just keep the P's and K's up
I’m having Fibrophos spread on mine for that reason, as don’t have much muck that the animals haven’t already spread.
Yes got a good few tonnes of well rotted stuff here.
I did first cut (4 inch stubble) but now grazing, leaving a fairly strong residual.
Might even let of flower late Summer and mob graze it with dry stock, to see if I can keep natural self seeding going. Did it last year, worked well.
- Location
- Acton Scott, South Shropshire
On our organic unit we use a red clover/ryegrass - winter oats - stubble turnips - spring barley (undersown white clover/ryegrass) - winter oats - stubble turnips - spring barley (undersown red clover/ryegrass) rotation - very simple and works really well. Rotationally grazed/multi-cut silage. Dont agree with comments regarding red clover not liking regular cutting/grazing and is never left long enough to flower.
ollie989898
Member
One place I know of that grow a lot of red clover leys have all their silage cut with a grouper, it is never raked.
JMTHORNLEY
Member
- Location
- Glossop
Ideally that’s how I’d like to do it
ollie989898
Member
Set of triples all into one apparently. Must have to leave it to wilt a fair while but not touched after that.
- Location
- somerset
we don't ted out our red clover, might be a bit wetter than ideal, but its all 'there' to go in the pit, just row it up first.
We had 5 cuts last year, the companion prg likes that, not so much the clover, we overseeded it with 2kg/ac of rc last autumn. It will come up next autumn, for maize, then wheat, as part of our rotation.
We had 5 cuts last year, the companion prg likes that, not so much the clover, we overseeded it with 2kg/ac of rc last autumn. It will come up next autumn, for maize, then wheat, as part of our rotation.
JMTHORNLEY
Member
- Location
- Glossop
Second cut red clover looking absolutely fantastic, in fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cut look this good let alone a second. How’s everyone else getting?
. 5 minutes of pressure got them out in the end. 
- Location
- Ceredigion
Not long cut mine, bit of everything in there
- Location
- somerset
not very well, off ours, grass was to dry, red clover, not giving the expected boost, l think it was all to 'dry', they were perfectly happy on it, until we started 1 feed on proper grass, yields are lifting a bit. There wasn't any choice, but to feed it, and it added 14 days extra recovery time, for the leys, to bulk up.
Cut 2nd cut of this red clover ley yesterday, 45 days after first cut. Hopefully get a 3rd cut and wean lambs onto it. It has cocksfoot, festulolium, fescue & a little ryegrass in it, not a fan of to much ryegrass as it’s so shallow rooted. It did have Sainfoin in the mix as well but it failed to establish in the autumn. A bespoke mix thanks to @Great In Grass
JMTHORNLEY
Member
- Location
- Glossop
What you feeding that to? Shame the grass ran away a little bit, shame about the sanfoin to
Job to say as only on this once a day, to eek it out. But they like it so hopefully its good, and better than anything else on the platform.
Split block, moving to autumn block as summer milk is not easy here.