Is there any hope red clover DD into maize stubble at end of September would germinate?
Thistles won't survive in red clover anyway , you'll be cutting it 3 or 4 times a year and clover comes back pretty vigorously .. I'd definitely top what's there before you reseed ,
Wet season clovers are clovers that like plenty moisture, wet soil, and are resistant to low temperatures. Ideal for growing in Ireland
Dry season clovers are clovers that enjoy hot temperatures and dry land. They’re usually not frost hardy. Not suitable for Irish conditions.
What are dry and wet clovers Dawg?
Interesting video on youtube of a farmer in Limerick with red clover. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6eudu7_pOE
Cheers. Ya I suppose it’s a clean enough field but with a couple of pockets of thistles starting to re appear. Better to spray off in that case I suppose.
Yes you can. However you can also spray and plough it in 3-4 days time. The butt will continue to die when buried.
The ideal thing would have been to spray 2-3 weeks ago and let cattle/sheep graze it then.
This is all provided it's not badly infested with docks thistles etc
Applied for the red clover scheme. Grazed a field very tight at weaning time with ewes. That was a couple of weeks ago so a small pick of grass coming back now.
can you plough it without spraying if grazed super tight?
and is it getting too late now and better to wait till April time?
I don’t know the cost of a bag of red clover or if the payment goes far in paying for it, but I have a field that’s bumpy and needs ploughing regardless so I’m thinking why not try red clover alone for silage crops
Good thread this - I guess I'm at a strange advantage when it comes to MSS as half the place in North Mayo is on free draining sandy type soil(nearest the shoreline) that naturally supports a good herbal mix despite the climate. The plaintain swards in particular are great for young stock and we've found dramatically reduced issues with general scour, worms etc. since we went all in on this system a few years back.
Serradella is another one that might have potential.
Early grazing with weanling heifers, 3 cuts of silage and a light grazing in the back end.
It’s for grazing and forage then?
Whats going in is 8.75 Kgs tetraploid, 12.25 Kgs perennial, 7 Kgs red clover, 3.5 Kgs white clover.
Should be easier to find seed compared to lablab
Link not working. All I’m getting is an ancient Roman.
How many kgs/ha?
Are you going to include anything else?
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/212851/Sulla.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjBqIK6zo_5AhXJQEEAHSVNAhkQFnoECC0QAQ&usg=AOvVaw12TN_OEAsLCGnO8Sye1SCH
Well I suppose we will have trial next year. There is 35 acres going into barley stubble here in 3 weeks. Just got my Erth direct drill last week.
Wtf is Sulla?
Im not too badly off Sam, I can work with vetches, peas and dry season clovers. The weather would be on my side with dry season clovers.
Can you grow Sulla? There's other distantly related legumes too that might full a gap
The ones that I can’t grow are clovers lucerne, chickpeas and Fava beans.
Good man!
High protein clover silage is a very concentrated and highly digestible form of protein. A little goes a long way. If, for example, you miss a feed or reduce the amount you will instantly see it in the tank. It’s quite like rapeseed meal, quickly absorbed in the rumen with very little bypass. It’s very unfair to clover silage to compare it to grass silage. They are after all two completely different taxonomic families.
Is it just clovers affected by that strain of sclerotinia or do bean and other non clover legumes suffer too?
Well the best silage by analysis we had last year was 82.6 DMD 22 % protein 4th cut in October. Won 1st place in the Kerry Holstein Breeders silage competition sponsored by Agriking. But the thing was the cows didnt do as well as lower protein silage from the first cut.
What protein can you achieve from perennial ryegrass silage?
20-24% easily enough with pure clovers.
DMD is great and all , but you can have both…
Enchanté Phil.
I was at that craic until January 2020. It was just a way to add value to cereals in my case.Same as with you we grew all feed in-house. Now we just keep a few dairy cows.
Out of interest, how do you finish jex bulls at 16mts? What carcass weight on average?
My clover growing now is very limited due to getting Sclerotinia Trifolium in the soil. I got that from growing clovers every chance I got for 10yrs…and being in a non inversion tillage system. I can only grow a clover every 6-7yrs now. However I’ve grown almost all the different species that are suitable for N Europe, and some that weren’t. Red clover is OK but wouldn’t be as good as lucerne in a long term program. IMO, there’s no real place for long term clovers in a tillage rotation…unless you’re trying to return some land that’s been abused and worn down to nothing.
Short term, wet season clovers are superb in a tillage/beef system. For example, if you’re in a maize or beet - wwheat - wbarley rotation, you could immediately plant a wet season clover after wbarley harvest and have a top quality high protein silage, for ensiling before planting beet or maize, iykwim? You also have rich beautifully conditioned soil before maize or beet. Win win, at a very small cost. We use no artificial fert before maize, sunflowers etc.
You can make just as good silage from perennial ryegrass swards, the thing is to cut early. We have made silage 84 DMD cut the start of May but it would have got 70 units of nitrogen in Spring. The only advantage with the red clover is you can cut out the nitrogen. But then you have the reseeding cost.
What I know from contributers elsewhere is it's the plant form of artificial Nitrogen in soil. A former dairy advisor now back in New Zealand but who studied multi species cover crops and pasture in Wales was well up on it.
Carbon soaks Nitrogen. In manure treatment, compost, soil. It all has the same law of nature. The more carbon you have the less leaching and the less gasing of Nitrogen. The inverse is also true. The more Nitrogen you have. The more carbon is gassed off back to Co2.
Off my head, Carbon: Nitrogen, 40: 1 would be timber, woodchip. It's stable ish takes a long time to breakdown. It's dependent on N from organisms to break it down. Manure 12 :1. It has more Nitrogen available hence the lower carbon to nitrogen ratio. It breaks down faster or can gas off the carbon faster.
Same works for soil. If there's higher Nitrogen in the soil it breaks down the carbon faster. The same works for exposing soil. I think the nitrogen in the air can gas off the soil carbon?
You want carbon in the soil as it prevents or slows down leaching of nitrates and phosphates. But too much or if the ratio goes stronger on the carbon side it prevents/slows uptake by your growing plants. It's all balance.
It's like these protected ureas. The granule is sprayed with a chemical from the pesticide, herbicide industry to inhibit /slow the soil bacteria from tearing into that granule. It's madness of course when there's nature's way of doing the same with carbon. And with carbon you're guaranteed there'll be no future foul ups.
Tall or meadow fescue cultivars today are probably very different to what was available then. Also could add festiloliums to the mix which didn't exist back then
I am The farmer Phil 😂.
Just in case your not aware of what we do. We finish fr, frx, jex bulls as well as aax, hex bullocks and heifers. We grow all our own feedstuffs. Barley, wheat, oats, beans, maize and beet. We’re looking at improving our silage quality to increase the dwg of our yearlings during housing.
so you use RC as a green crop in between main crops?
