Legumes that will over-winter in zone 3 winters (-35 degrees)

[Tree Spud]

Foggy ... I am in zone 4b and we see have seen extended winter temps in the mid -25 F. Medium red clover has done well over winter and good spring regrowth.

One clover you may want to look into is Frosty Berseem. Welters has it and claims it will withstand temps down to 5 F before dieback. You may want to call them to see what experience they have with over winter temps.


Frosty Berseem

I still like med red clover for cost and volume of forage in the spring.

 

[Foggy47]

Dan....the winters here are interesting to say the least. Once air temps get to freezing....the very top soil temps will start to freeze too.....but generally as temps rise and fall the ground (and roots) will not freeze sold until temps stay under perhaps 10 degrees or so. One way I guage the depth of the frozen tundra is by how thick the ice on our lakes becomes......(tho I think the ground freezes somewhat deeper than the water.)

Our lake will freeze over sometime in early December with just an inch or three of ice.....but once no open water exists to erode the ice from below.....and temps plummet the ice thickness grows quickly. By late December we have over a foot in many areas and folks are driving on the ice. At that point....you cannot get a shovel in the ground and you are likely to have frost down to 3 feet deep. All building footings need to be at six feet or more here to get below the frost line. One reason many have basements here on the tundra.

It is amazing that plants can suspend their growth cycle through the winter periods. Also odd how even people can be frozen (as in drowning in ice water) for a period and recover after seemingly long time periods. I don't fully understand it.

Nature is amazing.

Your question about "beyond air temperature".....is beyond my pay grade. grin.

 

[Foggy47]

Foggy ... I am in zone 4b and we see have seen extended winter temps in the mid -25 F. Medium red clover has done well over winter and good spring regrowth.

One clover you may want to look into is Frosty Berseem. Welters has it and claims it will withstand temps down to 5 F before dieback. You may want to call them to see what experience they have with over winter temps.


Frosty Berseem

I still like med red clover for cost and volume of forage in the spring.

I have no difficulty with over wintering of white clovers and red clovers.....none. Those come back year after year no problem. I'm just looking for more diversity and nitrogen providing alternatives that I can plant in fall. Those clovers are tough to terminate......and they normally come back to haunt me when I tray to grow brassica in late summer. I have a love / hate thing with clovers. At this point I am trying to go with the "good attributes" of clover and just plant chicory as my late season "draw". The chicory and clover play well together and perhaps this will prove to be the ticket. I added yellow sweet clover this year after seeing how that worked for SD..

I'm trying to find varieties that will work in Zone 3 - down to -30 f: (my crops currently being planted are in parenthesis).

.......I'm generally in AZ from December thru Early May each year.....and Im needing a plan that can work well with that schedule. Thus: A tough requirement.

1. Allow fall (august) planting and overwinter for the next May / June / July time frame. (winter rye, red and white clovers, AW Peas, Yellow sweet clover, chicory)

2. Provide nitrogen for following crops or compatible crops. (clovers, AW Peas,)

3. Provide Nutrition especially in early spring when deer are literally dying of starvation after a hard winter. (rye, red clover, white clover)

4. Provide Fawning cover from Bears, coyotes, occasionally wolves and bobcats through at least June. (rye / yellow sweet clover)

5. EASY TO TEMINATE for a fall candy crop. Or contain the fall candy crop from last season. (chicory)

6. Crops that can grow well in sandy soils with little fertilizer and / or herbicides needed. Possible periods of drought each year. Deeply rooted crops seem to survive as the water table is 3 to 5 feet below grade in many areas. (chicory, GH Radish, Turnips, Sorghum, Egyptian wheat, yellow sweet clover in year two.)

I forgot to buy some frosty beseem clover this year.....and wanted to try a few other varieties too. Only so much time. My big event this year is to try that yellow sweet clover.....and determine if I can handle the biomass in year two. I am fully invested in chicory too....as a possible alternative to brassica? <----- That is a leap of faith for me.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

The question of "do plants need to maintain roots below the frost line to survive the winter" is an intriguing one! The frost depths @Foggy47 mentioned were deeper than I recall being common but a quick google search suggested they can be even deeper but also what is on the surface makes a big difference. The DOT frost depth records under cleared pavement seem to be notably deeper than the DNR frost depths under sod.

We had deep, consistent snow cover through the winter in most of mn last year. @GMan5465 mentioned having a dozer do some clearing work last winter and that the snow had insulated the ground so well that there was basically zero frost despite temps getting plenty cold.

 

[FarmerDan]

The question of "do plants need to maintain roots below the frost line to survive the winter" is an intriguing one! The frost depths @Foggy47 mentioned were deeper than I recall being common but a quick google search suggested they can be even deeper but also what is on the surface makes a big difference. The DOT frost depth records under cleared pavement seem to be notably deeper than the DNR frost depths under sod.

We had deep, consistent snow cover through the winter in most of mn last year. @GMan5465 mentioned having a dozer do some clearing work last winter and that the snow had insulated the ground so well that there was basically zero frost despite temps getting plenty cold.

I don't think plants need to have roots below the freeze line (frost is a whole different thing in my mind) but there's eventually got to be some water - liquid moisture - coming from somewhere eventually in soils that are frozen blocks. I'm thinking soil temperature and not air temperature.

Snow cover helps. I've seen places in upstate New York have snow cover early enough and for a long enough time to prevent much of a soil freeze even at extended periods of below zero temperatures. I knew one old dairy farmer who would not cut alfalfa a third time because he used the biomass to trap snow to keep the soil "warm" enough to allow the old stand alfalfa to survive the winter.

Can soil frozen solid without snow cover get warm enough on a sunny cold winter day to thaw even a couple millimeters to free some small amount of water? If so do plantings with a southern exposure fair better? Questions with no answer but fun (maybe) to think about.

 

[Maddog66]

Here is a pic of my clover and chicory last weekend. Zone 3a. Planted last late summer with brassicas that I THOUGHT had shaded and killed the perennials. It clearly didn’t. It was just feed store bin seed and I’m really happy with it this year.

Edit. As far as frost depth, I’m building a new house on the farm now and water lines have to be at 8 feet deep to be safe!
Edit 2 : I’m in 3b not 3a. All I know is I’m 6’5 and the snow is usually past belly button deep. It gets so cold sometimes that breathing through your mouth can kick in a gag reflex, and breathing through your nose gives you brain freeze.

 

[Wild Thing]

We often have frost depths down to 7 feet below the surface also (Upper Michigan). Nobody gets buried here in the winter. After the funeral service you go into cold storage and after the frost comes out of the ground in the spring, burials will resume.

I don't know how it all survives either but the only thing that usually frost kills up here is oats, brassicas, buckwheat or other annuals that you may include in your cover crops. All of these plants (rye, hairy vetch, medium red clover, crimson clover) were all planted the previous fall. This is what they look like the following June.

 

[Foggy47]

My sewer line to the septic tank can and has frozen at a depth of about 4 feet. In low snow years we put "frost blankets" over the area where the sewer line runs. As said water lines need to be 8 feet deep to prevent freezing. And when it's 30 below.....the sun can be full shining for day after day....and the ground is not going to thaw. Nope. Snow cover is a huge benefit to preventing deep frost and freezing temps. And covering the soil with a blanket seems to prevent freezing directly below the area protected but not a foot wider.......kinda amazing how that works.

Years with cold weather and little snow raise hell with septic systems, water systems, and more. We are not here.....so we need to prepare for lack of use situations in our water and sewer lines. Using your sewer system helps keep it from freezing.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

^ ^ ^ ^ Nice plots, Maddog & WT!!

I'm interested to hear / read what varieties of clover last through several winters. Our camp would LOVE to have a long-term clover plot. Our winter temps. rarely get to -10, and that would only be for a day or 3.

We've planted red clover here along with chicory, winter rye, and turnips in the late summer / early fall (mid-August to mid September) and they survived the winter to provide great feed the following spring. But we don't get anywhere near -35.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

My sewer line to the septic tank can and has frozen at a depth of about 4 feet. In low snow years we put "frost blankets" over the area where the sewer line runs. As said water lines need to be 8 feet deep to prevent freezing. And when it's 30 below.....the sun can be full shining for day after day....and the ground is not going to thaw. Nope. Snow cover is a huge benefit to preventing deep frost and freezing temps. And covering the soil with a blanket seems to prevent freezing directly below the area protected but not a foot wider.......kinda amazing how that works.

Black plastic to absorb any sun heat??

 

[Maddog66]

That is so nice Wild Thing!!! Best I’ve seen up here. I clearly need to up my frostbite game a ton!!

 

[Foggy47]

I don't think plants need to have roots below the freeze line (frost is a whole different thing in my mind) but there's eventually got to be some water - liquid moisture - coming from somewhere eventually in soils that are frozen blocks. I'm thinking soil temperature and not air temperature.

Snow cover helps. I've seen places in upstate New York have snow cover early enough and for a long enough time to prevent much of a soil freeze even at extended periods of below zero temperatures. I knew one old dairy farmer who would not cut alfalfa a third time because he used the biomass to trap snow to keep the soil "warm" enough to allow the old stand alfalfa to survive the winter.

Can soil frozen solid without snow cover get warm enough on a sunny cold winter day to thaw even a couple millimeters to free some small amount of water? If so do plantings with a southern exposure fair better? Questions with no answer but fun (maybe) to think about.

It's interesting each year to see what get "winter killed". We generally can lose some plants that will not over-winter every year. Same goes for some of our lawn areas that become basically "freeze dried" in the winter. I think if the moisture remains frozen within some plants....it helps to prevent this "freeze drying" effect. I'm not 100% sure how plants can fully freeze for extended periods and then "wake-up" in spring......but many do. (perennials vs annuals).

We try to plant mostly perennials outdoors at my home to keep costs and maintenance down. Some folks go wild with lots of annuals each year. I'm just too lazy.

 

[Foggy47]

Black plastic to absorb any sun heat??

Yeah....but without any insulation the cold will penetrate that easily at night. Imagine wearing an unsiultated black plastic bag in below zero temps at night. Yikes.

 

[Bearswamper]

I believe Balansa is an annual clover. I planted Aberlasting clover last fall. It supposedly is a perennial, fast growing, highly didgestable, high in protein, wet and drought tolerant, with high grazing tolerence that can withstand temps to minus 4* F. This spring it was the first clover to emerge and through the summer it has withstood browsing from our high density herd. It is actually in the first plot that deer encounter when they emerge from cover. I got from Deer Creek seed last season. When I went to buy more it was sold out this spring.

 

[Angus 1895]

Saifoin?

 

[Foggy47]

Saifoin?

I did try sainfoin several years back. thought that would be the real deal. Never was successful with it......I think it is fussy to establish. Need to dive deeper into my memory.

 

[Angus 1895]

It is known to attract deer versus alfalfa.

I have had great luck with alfalfa in my area

But as said before 35 below and no snow is a tough deal.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Yeah....but without any insulation the cold will penetrate that easily at night. Imagine wearing an unsiultated black plastic bag in below zero temps at night. Yikes.

What kind of insulation / frost blanket do you use up there in the tundra - like for over water lines, etc.?? Just curious.

 

[Foggy47]

What kind of insulation / frost blanket do you use up there in the tundra - like for over water lines, etc.?? Just curious.

I use some blankets that have a flexible plastic outer shell with a batt of insulation in the core. Maybe 1" thick. Mine are about 6' wide and perhaps 20 feet long. They also use these over freshly poured concrete to insulate on cold nights.

These have grommets around the perimeter and I use some long pole barn nails to anchor them to the ground (along with a few rocks) until we get a bit of snow to anchor them in place. Insurance against a snowless winter and super cold winter. We had one super cold, persistent winter where the frost ran real deep. And without use ....our septic system had frozen up. Not good.....nearly cost us a real issue with a sewer back up. Averted that in the nick of time. Added the blankets and it solves that issue.

 

[Foggy47]

YELLOW SWEET CLOVER is a legume. Puts out lots of nitrogen and is persistent year after year. Huge amount of biomass. Check out the thread SD started on it....and his results. It's got very deep roots (like alfalfa) and extremely drought tolerant. Provides tall cover and lots of biomass for fertilizer and armor on the soil. Grows in zone 3!

I made a leap of faith and planted 4 lbs / acre of this stuff this year. Hoping it works well for me. Evidently before synthetic fertilizers lots of farmers used YSC before corn to provide up to 150 lbs of nitrogen.

I'm in. (and hope I don't regret it).