Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Quality Deer Management School me on perennial clover plots

I planted my first clover only plot this past fall. I have been doing some reading regarding maintenance practices, but am getting some conflicting answers. Some say to cut, some say to spray, some say to do both. What practices have you had good results with? Thanks

I bushhog after the blooms dry and again when its too cold for the competing weeds and grass to grow(around mid october, you can see the new clover sprouts). Ive never fertilized or sprayed it. It grows slow through fall and winter and takes off in the spring. Deer feed heavy on it all winter.

You definitely have to mow it or it will get tall, fall over and choke out new growth. Spraying is almost always necessary but depends on how many weeds/grasses you have and how clean you want the plot. You need a different chemical for grasses vs weeds. I used to grow about 14 acres of Advantage Ladino and had completely weed free plots but I put my time in to get and keep them that way. This Fall I'll be going back to that program, beginning with killing all the plots in June, turning them in July, killing again in August and planting in September/October.

I spray gly on my all my fall planted perrenial clover in early April at 2ozs per gal. That kills both grasses and weeds without killing the clover. Its a reduced rate. Dont attempt this in the summer when the clover is stressed. I let my deer mow my clover. A study done by qdma showed no increase in nutrient or deer usage on mowed clover.

It's good that your deer could control the growth of your plot(s). That could also be relative to the variety of clover that you planted. The Advantage Ladino that I planted would get knee high, tough and fall over if it wasn't mowed and the deer couldn't graze the acreage down fast enough to keep it in check. Once it gets tall and tough they don't eat it as well as the shorter, tender plants. Nutrient content was never a consideration.

I plant durana and have small 1 acre or less plots. Yea, I would mow mine as well, in your situation.

What would be the purpose then of going to all the trouble to keep it "weed free" if it is more acreage than the deer can keep up with and therefore costing you more work to go back and mow? Wouldn't it be a lot simpler to not worry about the "weeds" so much?

That's a good point. As long as the vast majority is clover, a few weeds don't bother me. I'm sure they bother the deer even less.

A few weeds allowed to make seed make more weeds and more weeds make.... .... ..... ....... Some weed seeds will lie dormant for more than one season so it's beneficial to not allow weeds to get a start at all.

Why would that matter at all? What's clover's main function in life?

Clover is a legume and provides high protein to animals and fixes nitrogen in the soil. High protein builds antlers and body condition. Nitrogen makes other plants grow so it is used as a cover crop for food source plants, i.e. Corn, cotton etc

Correct.....producing nitrogen was what I was specifically after in asking that....clover produces nitrogen for OTHER plants....it's actually more of a companion crop really. It will grow just fine in conjunction with other natural for ages. One of the reasons folks start having trouble with clover monocultures after awhile is because their C:.N ratio is out of whack.....Their producing mostly all."N" and no "C".....Over time this causes more and more of a need for carbon to be added back to the soil. All of the excess N being produced and not used begins to promote more and more carbon producing plants