>>
>>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.
I encourage clover by grazing a month or more in spring before haying. Made a huge difference as before doing this I had zero
clover. If I wanted to eliminate clover I'd just do the opposite. My clover content is now very high too though I did zero
seeding and no liming. Had some bloat problems but my guard dog has to eat something. Very little bloat now, I believe bloat
is controled in a significant part by genetics then? Clover thrives in soil that has littled stored nitrogen and I understand
that over time clover will fix this and decrease its own advantage. Heard once that pasture newly converted to management
intensive practices is best for chickens and hogs due to the high clover content, mineral and nitrogen from manure coming from
grain feeding good for getting stand healthy and more balenced, animal have a short financial turn around helping a new farmer
pay bills and the meat even with less than ideal conditions is easy to reach higher quality and consistancy
than found in the stores. Good for the new guy to build customers.
Andy Lyon
Diversified Farmer
Northern PA
