Are these root nodules?

[SD51555]

Ok, I was scraping mulch off a garden and getting it prepped to cover crop. I pulled out some volunteer clover and it came up with these giant whatevers on their roots. Are these nodules?

This is the cut open view.

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[Foggy47]

Those would be HUGE nodules. But not sure what else it could be. What variety of clover is that?

 

[SD51555]

Those would be HUGE nodules. But not sure what else it could be. What variety of clover is that?

No idea. It’s volunteered in the garden bed. There’s a pile of rotten firewood down there and it’s never been ripped up since I built it in 2022.


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[J B]

It looks like pea seed that has germinated.

 

[Tree Spud]

Root nitrogen nodules will look a lot like pelletized UREA.

 

[Bill]

That’s really cool. Has to be from the clover plant itself. Must be a nodule of N.

 

[SD51555]

These were growing up against the fabric on the inside edge of the bed. That's the only reason I think these pulled out as intact as they did.

 

[SD51555]

I wonder if these are nodules and they got abnormally huge because they had access to ample amounts of air being up against the fabric, but never dried out because it's been so wet, and this was on the north side of the bed? I'm gonna try to find a soil guy to take a look at them.

 

[SD51555]

This is the bed it came out of. I've been running all sorts of variations of raised bed/hugelkultur/minimalism. This one was an attempt to cut out the cost of treated lumber. At the time, treated lumber was just dumb and I wanted to see how long it'd take to build a bed out of the immense amount of poplar I've been laying down from my sky busting operation. The Inside edge of that bed is a single layer of porous fabric to keep the soil from washing back into the wood perimeter. I think it's getting a crazy high amount air through the sides.

Today, I scraped back all the wood chips and planted faba beans and forage oats for a cover crop. I don't know how much I'm going to get in the next 4-8 weeks, but I wanted to try something different. This bed might have gotten way too high of a pH when I built it, and then I made it worse by throwing more lime on. May have also been too heavy on the wood chips. It just didn't do well with anything this year.

 

[Telemark]

It looks like pea seed that has germinated.

Sure does.

 

[Foggy47]

If you google "nodules on clover roots" you will see some pics that look quite similar.....and some good description of what is happening. Google is my friend.

nodules on clover roots - Google Suche

 

[homerj]

It looks like pea seed that has germinated.

The tops look like peas as well

 

[SD51555]

The tops look like peas as well

I could swear they were clovers, but now that you say that, it does look like there are little feelers like you'd see out the top of a pea plant. One theory that could make them peas is, I let my peas go and didn't even harvest any. They got woody and I just left them lay. Maybe a mouse or chipmunk grabbed those dried pods and buried those peas in a cavity under some wood buried in the hoog. That may also explain why I got all of that out without breaking the roots. I also don't think any clovers have thick roots like that.

Damn, I thought I had the biggest damn root nodules anyone on earth has ever grown.

 

[homerj]

I could swear they were clovers, but now that you say that, it does look like there are little feelers like you'd see out the top of a pea plant. One theory that could make them peas is, I let my peas go and didn't even harvest any. They got woody and I just left them lay. Maybe a mouse or chipmunk grabbed those dried pods and buried those peas in a cavity under some wood buried in the hoog. That may also explain why I got all of that out without breaking the roots. I also don't think any clovers have thick roots like that.

Damn, I thought I had the biggest damn root nodules anyone on earth has ever grown.

Roots and stalks definitely appear non-clover too and more typical of annuals than perennials

 

[Foggy47]

Roots and stalks definitely appear non-clover too and more typical of annuals than perennials

Agree. Was just this morning pulling some clover plants to look at the root mass. Much finer root system

 

[TreeDaddy]

I could swear they were clovers, but now that you say that, it does look like there are little feelers like you'd see out the top of a pea plant. One theory that could make them peas is, I let my peas go and didn't even harvest any. They got woody and I just left them lay. Maybe a mouse or chipmunk grabbed those dried pods and buried those peas in a cavity under some wood buried in the hoog. That may also explain why I got all of that out without breaking the roots. I also don't think any clovers have thick roots like that.

Damn, I thought I had the biggest damn root nodules anyone on earth has ever grown.

........to go along with the most famous thistle patch

bill

 

[Foggy47]

........to go along with the most famous thistle patch

bill

Gotta admit it......the kid thinks big! Grin.