Arrowleaf vs Medium Red

Bassattackr

5 year old buck +
Looking for another clover to add to a Winter Wheat / Crimson Clover fall planting to cover the late spring thru summer portion of the gap. I know Dr. Craig Harper has experimented with these mixes some.

Anyone use either of these - Arrowleaf (Blackhawk) or a Medium Red to fill the summer gap? For me, crimson doesn't get browsed much after bloom. Also would be curious to learn more about either of these varieties and when / what their strengths are?
 
I cleared a food plot ten years ago and arrowleaf came in it volunteer. It is a big, tough, robust clover approaching 3 feet tall on my place. In hot, sw AR - it is dead and gone by end of July. At first, I wasnt crazy about it. After a few years, I came to like it. Since it gets so tall and robust, does like it for fawning. It is dead and gone late summer so it doesnt interfere with spraying and fall planting. It comes back every year from seed - and has for ten years now. It is present at sufficient height in mid winter to provide a benefit to deer. I have no idea how it takes colder weather.
 
SC - You ever see much browse evident with it?
 
My deer love it and it’s a heavy reseeder. It does grow very tall and in middle Georgia it last until sometime the n June.
 
Looking for another clover to add to a Winter Wheat / Crimson Clover fall planting to cover the late spring thru summer portion of the gap. I know Dr. Craig Harper has experimented with these mixes some.

Anyone use either of these - Arrowleaf (Blackhawk) or a Medium Red to fill the summer gap? For me, crimson doesn't get browsed much after bloom. Also would be curious to learn more about either of these varieties and when / what their strengths are?

I have not used Arrowleaf, but I love Medium Red. I use it as part of a field "resting" program. In general, I use my larger fields to cover the summer stress period with warm season annuals and then replant for fall attraction as well as to cover the winter stress period. I mostly use no-till or min-till methods so they get a burn-down herbicide twice a year. When you continue to use any broad spectrum herbicide over a long period, there will always be some weeds that are naturally resistant to it. You end up favoring those weeds over other weeds. An important ingredient for deer is diversity and that includes weeds. So, I pick one field every year or two and take it out of rotation and rest it from herbicides and planting. This helps restore a natural balance of weeds.

My normal fall plant is WR/CC/PTT. When I'm going to rest a field, I substitute Medium Red for the Crimson. Medium Red is a short-lived perennial and Crimson is an annual that acts as a reseeding annual in my area. Medium Red will take off the next spring for me. I can mow to terminate PTT before it bolts and it favors the Medium Red over weeds even more. I then maintain the field with nothing but mowing once or twice a year for 2 to 3 years. No herbicides or planting. I then bring it back into the rotation and choose another field to rest.

Deer seem to love Medium red just as much as crimson or perennial white clover (Durana in my case). There are times when my deer will favor one over the other , but over time, preference seems to be about the same.

Thanks,

Jack
 
SC - You ever see much browse evident with it?
Yes - deer feed on it extensively when it is young and green in Feb down here and then hit it hard again in early to mid summer. Gets awfully tough and stemmy in the summer - but they still browse it
 
Great feedback! Thanks all, much appreciated.
 
For me , down here, I wouldn’t plant Crimson if you paid for everything. They just don’t seem to eat it for us. Go 10 miles down the road, and other people may love it and plant it every year. Deer can be funny creatures.
 
Medium red is highly preferred by deer here. When planted with chicory, I don't believe there is a better food plot that covers as many months of the year. And the MR fixes nitrogen which the chicory loves.
 
For me , down here, I wouldn’t plant Crimson if you paid for everything. They just don’t seem to eat it for us. Go 10 miles down the road, and other people may love it and plant it every year. Deer can be funny creatures.

I have the same experience NV.. Going to try one more year in a mix, we'll see. I enjoy seeing the colors though..

Preference is a funny thing, some have entire plots of buckwheat eaten to the ground, around me they won't even touch it. Too much other good browse and ag in my area..
 
For me , down here, I wouldn’t plant Crimson if you paid for everything. They just don’t seem to eat it for us. Go 10 miles down the road, and other people may love it and plant it every year. Deer can be funny creatures.
True, deer are funny creatures. I presume you are using exclusion cages, correct?
 
Crimson is a good place to look for sheds.
OaVeJh9.jpg

And red clover lasts all summer. This pic below was this past Saturday.
NqO9oLB.jpg
 
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Yep! Greens up early in the spring here before most other stuff and gets heavyf deer use before green-up.
 
Crimson is a good place to look for sheds.
OaVeJh9.jpg

And red clover lasts all summer. This pic below was this past Saturday.
NqO9oLB.jpg

Habitat and family/children pics never get old

Great pic

bill
 
True, deer are funny creatures. I presume you areusing exclusion cages, correct?
Not really anymore. I try and just plant perennials. The guys in the club with me aren’t sold on them yet so I have to slip Durana in one a year. If it was up to me, all of our plots would be in Durana and alfalfa and then we would drill forage oats through them every October. Easy and would feed deer all year long.
 
Not really anymore. I try and just plant perennials. The guys in the club with me aren’t sold on them yet so I have to slip Durana in one a year. If it was up to me, all of our plots would be in Durana and alfalfa and then we would drill forage oats through them every October. Easy and would feed deer all year long.

Exclusion cages can be a real eye opener as to how much deer are using a crop. I hear a lot of "deer don't like X" until someone uses and exclusion cage and finds out how much it is actually being used. I have a lot of Durana and love it. You can't really drill cereal into perennial clover unless you suppress it. That can be done by spraying well established Durana with 1 qt/ac gly or by bushhogging it flat to the ground.
 
Exclusion cages can be a real eye opener as to how much deer are using a crop. I hear a lot of "deer don't like X" until someone uses and exclusion cage and finds out how much it is actually being used. I have a lot of Durana and love it. You can't really drill cereal into perennial clover unless you suppress it. That can be done by spraying well established Durana with 1 qt/ac gly or by bushhogging it flat to the ground.
Exclusion cages can be a real eye opener as to how much deer are using a crop. I hear a lot of "deer don't like X" until someone uses and exclusion cage and finds out how much it is actually being used. I have a lot of Durana and love it. You can't really drill cereal into perennial clover unless you suppress it. That can be done by spraying well established Durana with 1 qt/ac gly or by bushhogging it flat to the ground.

we drilled oats into our Durana last year using a John Deere 8300 and it worked fine.
 
we drilled oats into our Durana last year using a John Deere 8300 and it worked fine.
You must have a very thin field of durana. Here, Durana is so aggressive that it would shade out anything you drill without suppressing it.
 
You must have a very thin field of durana. Here, Durana is so aggressive that it would shade out anything you drill without suppressing it.

They get very thin to almost nonexistent in the heat of the summer but in about another month they will thicken up quiet nicely. Will look so good I almost want to bring some Ranch dressing with me.
 
You must be further south with a quite dry climate. Ladino do dormant in the summer for quite while here, but Durana only goes dormant for a couple weeks in the middle of the summer in dry years. That would be way to early to drill cereal here. It would be significantly less palatable when the season rolls around.
 
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