Did the clover reduce grass production?

[brandonm_13]

Had a co-worker that planted orchardgrass and clovers last fall. The pasture was a warm-season grass pasture, and was properly limed and fertilized. According to my co-worker, the grass came up, but never really amounted to much while the clovers did reayou well. We had the drought last year followed by a cooler, rainy year. I'm wondering if the weather is to blame, if the clovers kept the grass choked down, or if it was something else. What do you think?

 

[kenny thomas]

Had a co-worker that planted orchardgrass and clovers last fall. The pasture was a warm-season grass pasture, and was properly limed and fertilized. According to my co-worker, the grass came up, but never really amounted to much while the clovers did reayou well. We had the drought last year followed by a cooler, rainy year. I'm wondering if the weather is to blame, if the clovers kept the grass choked down, or if it was something else. What do you think?

The clovers will of course do better in the drought but they always do better anyway until the grass gets well established. If the grass has a good stand it should do lots better next year.

 

[dun]

WSG is better planted earlier then fall, it's also very slow to get established, takes minimum of 2 years for it to really show well, three is better.

 

[brandonm_13]

Dun the warm-season grass was an annual, millet. It was planted in May. After it was finished, orchardgrass was planted in the fall. It was the orchardgrass that didn't produce as well. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[dun]

We have one field that we used to call the clover field because it was 90% clover that would grow almost waist high, no idea what kind it was. I drilled OG and timothy into it in the fall and none came up, the clover crowded everything out. Gradually over the past 10 years the clover has decreased to about 20-30% and the fescue that was apparantly always there has taken over. Don;t know much about OG except my cows won;t eat it so I don;t plant it anymore.

 

[Banjo]

I had a couple of fields 2 years ago that were covered in that small white clover, it choked about all the grass out. I No-tilled it with persist orchard grass and now it has the dominance, grazing knee high at every rotation. OG don't withstand continuous grazing very well. But will flourish under IRG if allowed plenty of recovery time. OG can appear to be ready to regraze in as little as 2 to 3 weeks, but that is a mistake IMO.

 

[brandonm_13]

Dun, it's strange that your cows won't eat OG. Ive always had more problems with livestock eating fescue. Of course I've noticed most animals show a preference for eating what they've always eaten.

 

[dun]

Dun, it's strange that your cows won't eat OG. Ive always had more problems with livestock eating fescue. Of course I've noticed most animals show a preference for eating what they've always eaten.

Iknow it's weird. The few places where we have OG it just goes to seed and the girls eat around it. It took a couple of years for them to start eating WSG, but in that pasture they have no choice since that's all that's growing there.
And all of our fescue is from thee originl seeding 75 years ago. If I need any seed I get it off of the brush hog or mower and save it.

 

[Lucky_P]

Have planted, over the years, several different OG varieties. Potomac, Benchmark & Highmark - the cows would hardly touch it; absolutely the LAST thing they'd eat.
Have planted Persist in most paddocks now, along with Max-Q fescue. They don't seem to discriminate against it, and consume it along with everything else - though they will key in on Johnsongrass and crabgrass first.