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Sweetclover hay question
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<blockquote data-quote="Lucky_P" data-source="post: 1115449" data-attributes="member: 12607"><p>Tim, </p><p>You're unlikely to see much sweetclover (Melilotus officinalis) in AL; maybe a little in extreme N. AL, but would be pretty uncommon there, as well. Nothing like white/ladino, red, crimson, or arrowleaf clovers you'd be familiar with - it's a semi-woody biennial that grows about 4-5 ft tall, with yellow or white flowers. </p><p>Toxicology/poisonous plants courses I had always mentioned 'moldy sweetclover hay' - but I'd never even seen the plant, much less fed any hay containing it, until I left The South for the Midwest (MO), where I mostly saw it growing along the roadsides and in edges of crop fields. </p><p>The plant contains coumarin - which, is converted to dicoumarol, a powerful anticoagulant, if the plant material gets moldy after being cut for hay (rained on, incompletely dried before baling, etc. Moldy sweetclover hay can cause excessive bleeding.</p><p>Seems like I've seen claims that it's not very palatable in the standing state, for cattle, and they often avoid it or, at least, don't graze/browse it very heavily. </p><p>Being a legume, it does fix atmospheric nitrogen - and has a very deep taprooted root system, so withstands drought conditions well.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lucky_P, post: 1115449, member: 12607"] Tim, You're unlikely to see much sweetclover (Melilotus officinalis) in AL; maybe a little in extreme N. AL, but would be pretty uncommon there, as well. Nothing like white/ladino, red, crimson, or arrowleaf clovers you'd be familiar with - it's a semi-woody biennial that grows about 4-5 ft tall, with yellow or white flowers. Toxicology/poisonous plants courses I had always mentioned 'moldy sweetclover hay' - but I'd never even seen the plant, much less fed any hay containing it, until I left The South for the Midwest (MO), where I mostly saw it growing along the roadsides and in edges of crop fields. The plant contains coumarin - which, is converted to dicoumarol, a powerful anticoagulant, if the plant material gets moldy after being cut for hay (rained on, incompletely dried before baling, etc. Moldy sweetclover hay can cause excessive bleeding. Seems like I've seen claims that it's not very palatable in the standing state, for cattle, and they often avoid it or, at least, don't graze/browse it very heavily. Being a legume, it does fix atmospheric nitrogen - and has a very deep taprooted root system, so withstands drought conditions well. [/QUOTE]
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