yellow blossom sweet clover

[cross_7]

i'm in a semi arid area so this is about my only clover choice
i've read about some pro and cons
does anyone have any first hand experience with it ?

 

[hayray]

Ya, it is pretty much a plow down crop from years past. As far as a forage crop it is really unpalatable and turns woody real fast also. Baled a field of it once and nothing would touch it. Also has some toxicity problems with horses and in silage.

 

[novatech]

Being that it is your only choice, it beats no legume. Even if the cows don't touch it, it will still add nitrogen to the soil provided the microbes are in the ground.,

 

[KMacGinley]

In our sandy big pasture, it about covers the back 40 and the cows eat it pretty well when it is in a juvenile stage.

 

[Texas PaPaw]

We had sweet clover in our pastures in the panhandle years ago. Cattle would eat it well when it was young, but not so well as it matured.

You may want to investigate sainfoin. It is a nonbloating legume that is adapted to semiarid climates.

Curtis & Curtis Seed in Clovis NM sold sainfoin seed years ago. Here's a link to their site:

http://www.curtisseed.com/images/E0104901/legumes.pdf

 

[novaman]

I plant YB sweet clover every now and then. It is a biannual. That probably won't be a problem for you but here in ND I have issues with pulling it through the winter to get it in the second year. If I can establish a good stand and get it into the second year it will yield like crazy. I have not had the experience of others that have posted as far as palatability. My cows love the stuff. They will choose it over nearly anything else. The one caution is the chemical produced if it gets moldy. I think its call coumarin or something like that. When the clover gets moldy this chemical is produced. It causes the blood to be thinned in the cows and in severe cases the cows will bleed internally and abort, die, etc. I have never had this issue but I don't feed clover heavy either. I try to feed a bale here and there and like I said, no problems. I've heard a shot of vitamin K will combat the blood-thinning effect.

 

[msscamp]

i'm in a semi arid area so this is about my only clover choice
i've read about some pro and cons
does anyone have any first hand experience with it ?

I'm not sure if your type of Yellow Blossom Sweet Clover is the same as ours, but I'll share my experience with our type. Ours is wild - we actually have two type, one has yellow blooms, and the other has white blooms - and the cattle and horses would graze it just fine if it was young, and had no problem eating it when it been cut and baled while still short. Once it got to about mid-thigh high, they wouldn't touch it because it was stemmy and woody. I don't know if this helps or not, but that is what I've seen.

 

[cross_7]

thanks everybody
sainfoin looks promising

 

[novaman]

thanks everybody
sainfoin looks promising

Does sainfoin have advantages over alfalfa in your area? Around here alfalfa will beat out sainfoin in nearly every category you can think of.

 

[cross_7]

around here alfalfa won't survive without irrigation
i have a pasture i put cattle on in early spring and i am looking for something i can broadcast in the pasture that will help till spring green up

 

[hayray]

I think you should be looking at some other options, sweet clover is just really junk. It is really unpalatable, and high enough in fiber that I don't think any of that will out weight the benefits of planting it for the purpose of having a legume. It is also real inconsistent in stand persistence, comes and goes from year to year. Now if you were going to use it as a soil conditioner then I can see that for a plow down.