• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

Yellow Sweetclover year

coyote doctor

New member
Thought everyone might enjoy seeing the sweetclover that's growing in our part of South Dakota this year. What a year to have yearlings or honey bees! We have been using portable electric fence to make smaller pastures getting a little more use on the clover than we would if they had access to the whole pasture. The cattle just vanish when the enter a new pasture. Some of it is six feet tall.
DSCN0501.jpg

DSCN0498.jpg
[/img]
 

BRG

Well-known member
We have some in our heavier soils, but we have mostly sand, so it isn't like what others have. I have seen some in western SD and western ND that would cover a section. This is definetley a clover year.
 

Soapweed

Well-known member
Hills covered with yellow sweet clover are sure prettier and more productive than hills covered with yellow leafy spurge.
 

hillsdown

Well-known member
Now that should give them something to eat for a while.
I would hate to be the one that has to move the fence though . :wink:

Looks like you are having a good summer. :)
 

Cedarcreek

Well-known member
The clover is the same way up here. I've got one small pasture that used to be a CRP field that I had yearlings in for a couple of weeks, took them out June 6 and I cut it for hay July 3.
DSCN0624.jpg
 

Big Muddy rancher

Well-known member
We have lots this year as well. quite a bit of it is on native prairie that has a wire grass bottom so not nice for cutting hay. I know it does dry the soil out quite deep but does anybody know if it fixes much nitrogen that could be used by the grass in the future?
 

hillsdown

Well-known member
Sweet Clover contains coumarin that converts to dicoumarol (a powerful anticoagulant toxin) when the plant becomes mouldy. This can lead to bleeding diseases (internal hemorrhaging) and death in cattle. Consequently, hay containing the plant must be properly dried and cured, especially in wet environments.[1] In the chemical industry dicoumarol is extracted from the plant to produce rodenticide.

Sweet clover is a legume so
it fixes nitrogen and should be credited for N-additions; believed to move P and K to the root zone via its tap root system

http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/cover_crops01/sweetclover.htm
 

burnt

Well-known member
That's one heck of a stand of clover!

Last year was our sweet clover year but this year there it's scare as hen's teeth in the same fields, even with good moisture conditions. Can't figure it out.
 

Faster horses

Well-known member
We have some sweet clover this year, but we really don't care much
for it. Our uncle fed it years ago at calving time and it caused them
a lot of problems. So we don't feed it close to calving.
 

mrj

Well-known member
Is sweet clover a biennial plant? Here is west central SD, it seems to start one year, and do the real growth the next year.

It definitely is a mixed blessing! Between the tangling, and questionnable feed vallue. It often seems to be too tall and ranlk, with much of the leaf falling off if hayed when dry enough not to rot or be moldy, with some danger to cattle feeding on it.

mrj
 

coyote

Well-known member
Here is some of our clover that we seeded for a plow down.
The calves were told to stay out so they didn't get lost.
009-Copy.jpg

006-Copy-1.jpg
 

burnt

Well-known member
Wow coyote, imagine what you'd have if it would have grown!! You could lose a whole herd of cows in that stuff! lol

That should do some terrific soil building as a plow down.
 

Clarencen

Well-known member
We don't hear much about green manure anymore. at one time a lot of sweet clover was planted just to plow down. Not much in my area though, it uses a lot of moisture.
 

Faster horses

Well-known member
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

We've got lots of BORROWED tillage equipment sitting around here
and he still doesn't know which to use. I think he's scared to farm. :D
 

coyote

Well-known member
This is my Neighbours field. The Elk come around in the spring and leave in the fall. Our area is not known for elk.
elk003-Copy.jpg

elk006-Copy.jpg

Mom and Dad and my niece.
elk010-Copy.jpg
 

lefty

Well-known member
Coyote , You cut that for hay first & then plow it down as a second cutting ? or you put all that back in the ground ?
 

Latest posts

Top