-----Original Message-----
From: Paula and Sumner Roberts [mailto:meadowsweet@prexar.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 7:23 AM
Subject: clover suppression
Hi all,
I'm looking for suggestions on how to reduce clover in my pastures. I've
done a lot of frost-seeding Alice white clover into pastures on "native"
grasses such as bluegrass, timothy, orchardgrass and some 'mudded in' meadow
fescue. The alice is persistent and productive and aggressive and now
dominates many of the pastures, leading to problems with bloat. We lost a
couple of ewes last year and have had to treat couple already this year
even though it has been cold enough the clover only started growing well
last week. I'm trying to controll the situation by moving in the
mid-afternoon and by grazing my finishig steers ahead of the ewes, they seem
to be more resistant to bloat, I assume because they are unable to avoid
eating a lot of grass in their big mouthfulls. But I fear I may be setting
us for more trouble ahead, as the ewes grazing the paddocks quite close,
with the likely result that as the weather warms the clover will grow even
better and denser and we'll have pastures that are 70% clover as we did in
some areas last year. I was hoping nature would solve the problem as high
clover levels produced N and encouraged more grass growth, but don't see
that happening. I'm also wondering if Alice is paticularly bloat promoting.
Keeping in mind that I have no farming equipment such as sprayers, plows,
harrows etc. (I do have haying equipment, a cyclone seeder, a manure
spreader, and cattle, sheep, and horses), what can I do? We are nearly
organic by preference, but I am considering applying synthetic N fertilizer.
How much would it take to suppress the clover?
Sumner Roberts
Meaadowsweet Farm
Swanville, Maine USA
