Nitrogen from stunted clover

[worldsgreatestlover]

Drilled some crimson clover into a field beside the house as I do most years, primarily for the deer and a little winter grazing. A winter with very little rainfall , 2 very cold ( for us) weather events. And heavy deer pressure led to the clover doing very poor this year. A couple of inches at best. I've plowed it in and am preparing to fertilize and plant hybrid Sudan. Wondering if I should expect any nitrogen value from the clover.

 

[4hfarms]

Yes.

 

[Mrcopier]

Yep

 

[wbvs58]

Did you have to innoculate the seed or was it coated and had the freeze dried innoculant on it.

Ken

 

[worldsgreatestlover]

Did you have to innoculate the seed or was it coated and had the freeze dried innoculant on it.

Ken

Coated.

 

[Ebenezer]

The amount of N in tables produced by various legumes is assuming a complete life cycle of well inoculated seeds. Anything less or the drought issue will definitely lessen that amount of N.

 

[BFE]

We have a lot of very light soils in this area, outside of the river and creek bottoms. Before the advent of commercial fertilizer, folks sowed red clover for feed, and would sometimes let it get tall and rank and then plow it under, it was one of the only ways to "build" soil back then. Also was the only way to get a corn crop on those light soils.

You should be tickled pink with what you have. Keep up the good work.

Just posted this on another thread. It was red clover that was used, but yes you should get a decent N credit with even stunted crimson, it fixes more than the red.

 

[Mark Reynolds]

Pretty much goes without saying that N capture would/is suppressed. A soil test would give you a definitive answer, as well as how much to add.

 

[Dave]

Having done 1,000's of soil tests I will say that plowing down most anything will give you some nitrogen release. Just the vegetation breaking down will give you some as the micro in the soil go to work. But the results will be highly variable.

 

[littletom]

Pretty much goes without saying that N capture would/is suppressed. A soil test would give you a definitive answer, as well as how much to add.

A soil test that tells you exactly how much n you have. And how much to add based off what you have?