I am sorry it has taken me a whiile to find this thread. I had a long response typed up this morning and hit the wrong key and lost the whole darn thing.
I like our fescue pastures into which we planted (drilled) Durana several years ago. Durana is a low growing clover and thus I wonder if, other than a source of nitrogen, will you get any benefit in the hay? A close relative called Patriot is a taller clover and MAY be better for haying? I would ask Auburn for this answer.
I worry about putting Durana into a field where a grass will shade out the clover seedlings. I would speak again to Auburn about this. We kept ahead of the curve by clipping the fescue to prevent this from happening, but if you plan to let the hay grow, there is going to be shading and clover loss will occur.
Durana is very aggressive in its first couple of years, I blamed it for reducing my fescue stand, but it seems to slow down and be less competitive after say the third year - at least our observation and that of others. I had asked Univ. Ga. forage people about drilling some fescue into the beds of clover where the fescue was no longer visible, and they advised against it because the clover was so aggressive that the fescue would not take. So competition is another question to ask Auburn - once you have a stand of clover like Durana, are you going to be able to drill in a winter rye or someother grass?
If you have a weed problem in the field in question, they you will have one in spades after planting the Durana. First, you can not use any herbicide from here on out that will not also kill the Durana. I have spend the last three summers spot spraying 70 A of the stuff and just keeping nettle in check. If I had thought this through first, I would have spent two years spraying for nettle and other weeds before I planted Durana - hindsight is a good teacher.
I planted Cheyenne last year, but due, again, to weed pressure that I thought I had taken care of, only 50% of the Cheyenne germinated because of severe shading. Pennington came out to take a look, and this year gave me free seed to plant in areas that did not take. It appears to be a fast growing grass once established.
I now have the dubious distinction of being the King of Weeds, for the Univ. of GA weed specialist just completed two test plots of herbicide combinations on parts of our Cheyenne field. I would prefer to be known for something else.
My final advice, get all the advice you can before you enter into this adventure. You've got one of the finest agronomy sections in the country at Auburn, so utilize them!!!!! And, then let us know what you find out.
Billy
