Hey all, just wondering from the many different varieties out there, what has been your experience with the most aggressive and easiest and fastest establishing white clover varieties? Looking for any that would be especially aggressive as we don't like to use roundup or herbicides to kill weeds so we depend on timely soil preparation and planting. I've heard Durana and Patriot are good, but are they much different than other varieties, or are results similar with any of the white clovers from welter's seed?
thanks
Generally, the longer lasting a clover is, the longer and harder it is to establish. The key is finding the right clover for your situation and needs. I probably use herbicides with clover about twice in 10 years. Also keep in mind that using tilling to kill weeds has big downsides. In order to really kill weeds, you need a bottom plow that turns the soil. Google "Ray the soil guy" and watch some videos. Start with infiltration. This will give you a new perspective on using tillage.
For me the key is balance. Judicious use of both tillage and herbicides can really have great advantages. When you depend on one thing and do it frequently problems arise. I've got experience with Patriot White, Durana, Ladino, LA-S1, and many others. I've recently been experimenting with the Aberlasting sold by Welter.
My approach is to focus on weeds at the beginning and then employ weed tolerance. Folks are often under the misconception that clean monocultures represent great fields for deer. They don't. This largely comes from us deer managers looking at farm fields and using that as a definition of success. Yield is king for a farmer but unimportant for deer management. A "weed" is simply a plant growing where you don't want it. For a farmer, anything other than what he plants growing in his field is a weed taking resources. Many broadleaf weeds are better deer food than the crops we plant, so "weed" has a different context for deer management.
I only plant perennial clover in the fall and always with a Winter Rye nurse crop. I use glyphosate for the initial burn down and use throw-n-mow or min-till techniques for planting. My go-to clover is Durana. It is more drought resistant and longer lived that an unimproved clover like Ladino, but it is slow to establish. One technique that works well is mixing it with Patriot white. Patriot White is much faster to establish but is not a long-lived. They fields starts out 50/50 but eventually the Durana takes over. I found I don't really need the Patriot White if I use timely mowing the first spring. Each time the WR hits a foot or so, I mow it back to 6" with durana (8" with most other clovers). This keeps the WR alive but sets it back. It allows sunlight to the durana. The WR has an allelopathic effect on weeds as well as taking up space and resources that weeds would otherwise use. The clover germinates in the fall, so by spring, it has an advantage over weeds seeds that are germinating. I repeat this mowing anytime the WR gets a bit over a foot that first spring. By summer the WR dies naturally but by then, the durana is established and has filled in .
After that first spring, I only mow once a year, just before our archery season. In the summer, my plots look like weed fields in the summer and get worse every year, but after I mow in the fall and evening temps drop and more frequent rain comes and favors the clover, the Durana bounces back and dominates the field.
By about year 7 or so, the field is generally more weeds than clover. If I have time, I'll rotate the field into some N seeking crop for a season before going back to clover. If I don't have time. I'll deploy gly again. This time, I'll hit it with only 1 qt/ac. It is enough to kill the grasses that are now dominating the field. It top kills the durana. I have a little Kasco no-till versadrill. I'll then drill radish and WR into the field. This uses some of the excess N that the clover has fixed into the soil over the years. The radish and wr germinate and get started before the Durana bounce back from the root system. Here is a pic:
You can see how the clover bounces back. The key here is timing. You need to do this with rain in the forecast. If you don't want to use gly for this you can also bushhog the clover flat to top kill it. This does not kill the grasses so it does not last as long.
At this point, I'll generally get another 3 years out of the field before needing to rotate.
One of the most aggressive perennial clovers is medium red. It is what they call a "short-lived" perennial. It establishes very fast and generally only lasts 2 years. LA-S1 is less expensive than durana. It does well for me but does not last quite as long and is not quite as drought resistant. I planted Aberlasting last fall for the first time, so I don't have enough experience with it to say much.
Thanks,
Jack
