Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum Clover Field Spin-off

I want to plant a couple acres of clover for 2 primary uses: Deer feed and Honey Bee production. I have never planted "just clover" and really not sure what needs to be done to "do it right"...

Looking for recommendations on what to plant, when to plant it and how to take care of it so it thrives.

Start with a few key details: Where is your property, where is plot located (floodplain, hill top) and what is your soil type? Certain types of clover are better adapted for certain types of soil. A soil test will also be a huge benefit in calibrating the appropriate rates of lime/fertilizer.

Property is in a valley between mountains. Not a floodplain. I had a soil classification done that came back as: Allen fine sandy loam, eroded, undulating. PH is currently at 5.7

If you just wanted deer feed, I would say Whitetail, but if you want bee production then it would be durana. Plant it in the fall.

Should I burn the fields down with herbicide, disk, cultipack, plant, re-cultipack or some other method?

Soil moisture is key for clover

I personally think the more of a helping hand you give clover with weeds, the better. You are on the downward side of weeds for the year, so I don't know if burning everything will have as big of an impact. Disking it up will move the in ground seedbank around, so you will probably need to get after it next spring on herbicide.

The better your seedbed the better. I would wait until its about to rain to broadcast the seed, and you need it to rain for more than a couple hours. It would be better if there were 2 or 3 days of it forcast. The ground is still really dry in most places. My clover is rebounding in the shaded spots that hold moisture, but out in the direct sun, not so much.

I don't have a cultipacker, but I have had good success with just broadcasting clover ahead of rain. Its a small seed so its not hard to get it in contact with the soil if its raining. But because its a small seed, you don't need it to germinate and then not rain for 2 weeks, or you will be starting over most likely, or have a really poor stand of it.

Clover is wonderful. If the clover does not have bee activity - you don't have any bees.

I'm going to send you a PM with some good detail and instructions. Soil pH, killing non-clover weeds/grasses and fertilizer will be the key as clover food plots are high maintenance. Nutsedge is curse and clover enemy No. 1 and droughts are sometimes unforgiving.

You will need a big boom type spayer that you can put on your 4 wheeler or UTV for certain. If you have plenty of deer, the mowing may be minimized. If you are lucky, you can plant once and the plot may last 5+ years if you can control the weeds and nutsedge.

Thank you for sharing the info - MOST helpful!!!

1984 what are the using to control nutsedge in clover?I am establishing about an acre of perrenial clover and it will be a problem in my his spot.

I've been battling nutsedge hard for the past 4 years. In the first 3 years of our clover food plots I did not really know what nutsedge was and treated it like a weed. I sprayed with Clethodium, 24D, 24DB, and roundup - and the nutsedge was still there. It may be a sprig in the spring, a clump in the fall and a patch the size of your office desk in year 2. It will eventually spread and choke out your clover. Nutsedge will grow seed pods on the plant and also multiply underground and spread. Basagran T&O Herbicide from BASF is a product many golf coarses use, MSMA is another product (if you can find it) and Sedgehamer Plus is another that you can find at Home Depot. My advice is to learn how to identify netsudge and apply local poison to kill it early before it can mature and multiply.

This past year, we decided to just plow up our clover plots (what was left of them) and we kept them plowed up most of the summer. Our goal was to break up the nutsedge root system and let the roots dry out an die. It helped, but we still have nutsedge in places. Plowing and disking was probably 70% effective.

Today, our approach is to not have food plots that are 100% clover. We plant about 1/2 in clover and plant the other half in seasonal food plots (LabLab Beans and Iron Clay Peas in the summer and winter wheat, buck forage oats, chickory, sugar beats, rage and brassicas in the winter). The deep disking/plowing helps and we can easily rotate crops and replant in clover every few years or so. At least that is our plan. This year, we are not so lucky as it has been a severe drought and all of our food plots (including the clover) are nothing but bare dirt. We had maybe 1/4 inch of rain since July 4th. It looks like we are starting over this fall. Pray for rain.