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St. Gregor, SK, Canada | We produce it for seed...
Advantages:
1. It fixes a lot of N.
2. It's a very fast, and very competitive crop - you won't have any weed pressure.
3. The large tap root is good for compacted soils.
4. Plowing down, or in our case, chopping it with the combine, adds large amounts of organic matter.
5. New varieties like Norgold have low-cumarin levels, so they are safe for livestock.
Dis-advantages:
1. It can grow unwieldly - be prepared to deal with stuff that's 8' tall or more. There's pics on the second page of the stuff we posted, which, at almost 7' is short considering the cold spring.
2. It is very easy to hurt with chemicals, (loss of leaves / seed bearing production), but extremely hard to kill the plant. Make sure to work it under (if it's green manure) before the seed forms (at flowering time is best), if it is used for seed make darn sure you can spray Express on it the following year. Roundup alone has a hard time controlling it.
3. The older varieties have high levels of cumarin, which means that if the hay has any kind of mold it may cause livestock's blood to not clot, and thus they can bleed out.
4. The hay is hard to dry out unless you have a good conditioner.
5. You must swath it for seed production, either in the rain, or at night, or with a dew.
Any more questions, just ask :) | |
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sweetclover as covercrop
