Proper maintenance of clover

I keep reading about "proper" clover maintenance, which goes over mowing and herbicides. But only a few people touch on the subject of clover reseeding itself. It seems some theories are out there whether or not you should or shouldn't allow clover to go to seed. People say hey, it's free seed, then others say allowing it to go to seed, kills it? So could the experts clear this up for me and others wondering the same thing? How can you tell when it's going to seed? When it's brown, or is that too late? How high is allowing it to grow, too high? And obviously, most know, not to mow during dry spells.

See if this helps some http://extension.uga.edu/publications/detail.html?number=B1251&title=White%20Clover%20Establishment%20and%20Management%20Guide

My yard is 80% white clover. It goes to seed plenty when it rains too much to cut the yard when I have time in the spring. It is anything but dying.

BuckNasty83 said:

I keep reading about "proper" clover maintenance, which goes over mowing and herbicides. But only a few people touch on the subject of clover reseeding itself. It seems some theories are out there whether or not you should or shouldn't allow clover to go to seed. People say hey, it's free seed, then others say allowing it to go to seed, kills it? So could the experts clear this up for me and others wondering the same thing? How can you tell when it's going to seed? When it's brown, or is that too late? How high is allowing it to grow, too high? And obviously, most know, not to mow during dry spells.

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All my clovers go to seed. The "annual clovers" will die off, when it's "their" time. The perennial clovers keep churning away and doing what Mother Natures wants them to do. Free seed keeps getting dumped and if we have a bad drought and my Durana (perennial) gets stressed and thin, it will come back with the fall rains in a couple different ways. Either from it's existing root system or seed that was dropped from previous years.

In the first picture below (my Durana), the brown flowers have seeded out and will be dropping their seed. In the second picture, you'll see some of the Crimson Clover (red flowers) has flowered and then is seeding out. You'll see some of the seeded out flowers that look like a caterpillar on a stick. Crimson will drop it's seed and die off, but if not planted too deep, it will grow in the fall and start the cycle over again.

The only time I mow, is when I've been overtaken with broad leaf weeds. I use a weed wiper to knock back any grasses that I have and any cereal grains that I want to terminate, to release the clover below. "For me", the top one third of the clover plant, is the most tender, nutritious and desirable for the deer, so "for me" mowing that off, sets my food buffet back by a few weeks. If we go in to a drought situation, I've hurt myself. Also, I don't want any more light to get down to the soil surface to get more weeds or grasses growing.

In the last picture (an old one of crimson, arrowleaf and medium red clover), you can see where the deer are traveling in it and they are also bedding down and at this time of year, the does are possibly dropping their fawns, so I just let this go and wouldn't want run over any of them, so I stay off and out of the food plots and let Mother Nature take her course.

Clover is hard to kill and once you have it, you'll likely always have it.

BuckNasty83 said:

I keep reading about "proper" clover maintenance, which goes over mowing and herbicides. But only a few people touch on the subject of clover reseeding itself. It seems some theories are out there whether or not you should or shouldn't allow clover to go to seed. People say hey, it's free seed, then others say allowing it to go to seed, kills it? So could the experts clear this up for me and others wondering the same thing? How can you tell when it's going to seed? When it's brown, or is that too late? How high is allowing it to grow, too high? And obviously, most know, not to mow during dry spells.

Click to expand...

I let all my clover so to seed. My white clovers reseed all spring/summer/fall.My red clover is about to start dropping seed.
I will mow in a few weeks then again once it has reached 12-14" tall in the late fall. Once the clover reaches 8 " tall it will become "stemmy" and the deer won't eat it as well and have to reach down into the clover to get to the clover that is more palatable.Like Canuck I sprayed my clover for grass and it has taken 3 weeks for it to kill the grass. I will spray shortly for broadleaf and then top cut to 8 " a couple weeks after that.I won't do anything else to it during the summer. This fall I will spot spray for weeds and grass and fert/lime and add as needed per a soil test I do every 2 years.Then I will cut to 8" and kill deer.
You do have to be very mindful of wind drift when your spraying for weeds in clover if you have fruit trees,honeysuckle or any other plant you want to keep.
I have been trying to spray for the last 2 weekends and the wind was to high.

Thanks for all the advice, y'all. The clover is looking good now. Just wanted to know what to expect going forward. Sprayed with cleth last month and mowed a week or so ago and it looks like a different plot now. Wish I would have took a before pic, but you couldn't see much clover. It took the cleth about 4 weeks or more to do it's job. I started to doubt it. Wanted to clean it up a little more so I mowed it leaving a few lanes for the critters. In the top pic, from middle of plot, You can see the mowed strips of dead oats. Not even a week later, the clover exploded.(bottom pic) The chicweed looks to have pretty much died out due to the warm weather. (From previous thread) Should I hit this in the fall with some broadleaf killer, or wait till next spring? Or just when I see it come back?

Good job!! You're hooked now!

BuckNasty83 said:

Should I hit this in the fall with some broadleaf killer, or wait till next spring? Or just when I see it come back?

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Guess I missed a question here. Your biggest problem, I am willing to bet, is going to be grass. It is for me on my gas lines and power lines. You will get lots of grass coming thru where you mowed and your clover "might" start to look thin in those areas. Keep an eye on it and you might have to spray clethodim again. Mowing won't help with grass.

Take some more pictures and post them for us, when you feel like broad leaf weeds are becoming a problem for you and maybe we can help.

Let your clover go to seed and the deer are going to eat, what they are going to eat. The chart below shows what is going to make up most of their diet at different times of the year, and there's not much you can do to change that.

Plan to put down 200 lbs per acre of 0-20-20 in early October and plan to over seed with a good perennial clover. Poor fertilization, low soil ph and improper weed control are the reasons most perennial food plots fail.

Canuck5 said:

Guess I missed a question here. Your biggest problem, I am willing to bet, is going to be grass. It is for me on my gas lines and power lines. You will get lots of grass coming thru where you mowed and your clover "might" start to look thin in those areas. Keep an eye on it and you might have to spray clethodim again. Mowing won't help with grass.

Take some more pictures and post them for us, when you feel like broad leaf weeds are becoming a problem for you and maybe we can help.

Let your clover go to seed and the deer are going to eat, what they are going to eat. The chart below shows what is going to make up most of their diet at different times of the year, and there's not much you can do to change that.

Plan to put down 200 lbs per acre of 0-20-20 in early October and plan to over seed with a good perennial clover. Poor fertilization, low soil ph and improper weed control are the reasons most perennial food plots fail.

Click to expand...

Thanks for all the feedback Canuck. I was referencing to the cool season chickweed. It's gone now, but was present in about a 5x30 yard area in April. I'm counting on having to spray cleth again before fall for grasses and probably get cool season grasses too. At least right now, it looks like everything is under control

Good! Get your weeds and grasses under control now, for fall. A good stand of clover is great weed control, in and of itself (but not grasses )