At 07:51 AM 6/3/03 -0600, you wrote:
>>I'm looking for suggestions on how to reduce clover in my pastures.
>
>So odd to see this, I'v e been trying hard to get clover to grow and for
>me 70% clover would be great pastures. <G> We've not done any frost
>seeding, or anything except very close grazing and we're seeing more and
>more white clover come up in our pastures. Perhaps letting the grasses get
>longer will suppress it?
>
>>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
>
>Is alice clover the standard normal white clover? Are there any pictures
>of it somewhere? We have a lot of the white clover but we so far <knock on
>wood> haven't had any bloat problems in our sheep at all. Then again our
>sheep do seem to eat a variety of stuff when available and in a year like
>this they pick the clover first but also eat grasses and other stuff so
>perhaps that is preventing the bloat problems.
>--
>REPLY: Alice white clover is a variety produced by Barenbrug USA. They
>describe it as being large leafed, but do call it white clover rather than
>ladino. They say there are only two types of white clover, but there
>really is three: small, intermediate, and large (ladino). Grassland Huia
>from New Zealand is described as an intermediate type along with Louisiana
>White and Louisiana S-1. I suspect that Alice is probably an intermediate
>type or a cross between ladino and an intermediate. The intermediate type
>is larger-leaved than the wild white clover often found in pastures that
>is the small type and tends to be more persistent than ladino. Will,
>Jumbo, Regal, and Oseola are large (ladino) clovers. Jumbo is said to be
>more persistent than the other ladino clovers,but I have not seen it in
>trials. The intermediate white clovers are more heat tolerant than ladinos.
Bloat is generally not a problem up to about 60% white clover as long as
the animals are not underfed going into a mixed grass-white clover stand
for the first time. A 50-50 mix of grass and white clover though is a nice
safe target to shoot for. Thirty percent white clover is enough to provide
a stable balance of soil nitrogen in the pasture system. Once the white
clover stand declines to about 20 percent of annual production, it is time
to overseed with an improved variety to boost clover content. White
clover, at best, is a short-lived perennial due to disease problems and
insect feeding than often collaborate to thin the clover out. Some care
has to be taken in grazing management. If grasses are grazed too close to
the ground (less than a one inch stubble), white clover can increase and
become a solid stand on good water holding soils and under good rainfall
conditions. On the other hand, drought conditions, droughty soils, or
leaving a grazing stubble height greater than 2-3 inches especially at the
first and second grazing in the spring may clean out the white clover
altogether. If grazing stubbles are left high consistently, no amount of
overseeding will do much good to reestablish the clover stand.
>Jim Cropper
James B. Cropper
Forage Management Specialist
Pasture Systems & Watershed Management Research Unit
Curtin Road
University Park, PA 16802-3702
814-863-0942
814-863-0935 FAX
jbc9@psu.edu
