No Till Drilling clover

[P&Y Manager]

Hi all - switching over from the other forum. Have scoped this out a couple times but had been there for 10 years and just hadn't signed up here. Glad we still have a home!

Question for you No till drill owners - I'll be drilling cereal grains and brassicas soon but wanted to establish a straight clover/chicory field but haven't ever tried that with the drill. Does the clover fill in ok or is 7.5 in spacing a problem? Any tips/tricks for establishing a clover field by no-till drill would be appreciated.

 

[WTNUT]

Hi all - switching over from the other forum. Have scoped this out a couple times but had been there for 10 years and just hadn't signed up here. Glad we still have a home!

Question for you No till drill owners - I'll be drilling cereal grains and brassicas soon but wanted to establish a straight clover/chicory field but haven't ever tried that with the drill. Does the clover fill in ok or is 7.5 in spacing a problem? Any tips/tricks for establishing a clover field by no-till drill would be appreciated.

I did it for the first time this spring and worked great on 7.5 inches just get your pounds per acre set and don't go too deep.


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[yoderjac]

Personally, I prefer to broadcast cover. I don't have an independent cultipacker. One thing I've tried that worked pretty well is to disconnect the seed tubes from the planting shoes and just let them hand loose. Since the clover doesn't need depth, the seed tubes just bounce around and sprinkle seed the full width of my drill. I got a bit more clover in the rows where the openers exposed soil, but I also got good germination between the rows. I'm using a little Kasco Versa-drill that has a cultipacker in the rear. This may not work so well with a drill that has closing wheels only behind each row.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[WTNUT]

Jack's approach would work well and get your seed spread a little better. As long as your seed bed is firm, I never saw much difference between cultipacking after seeding versus not cultipacking. As long as it rains good, it will beat the seed down. The only time I would be afraid to disconnect the bottom of the seed tubes if you were drilling red clover into an existing hay field.

 

[yoderjac]

Jack's approach would work well and get your seed spread a little better. As long as your seed bed is firm, I never saw much difference between cultipacking after seeding versus not cultipacking. As long as it rains good, it will beat the seed down. The only time I would be afraid to disconnect the bottom of the seed tubes if you were drilling red clover into an existing hay field.

I think the cultipacking thing really depends on soil. I generally don't till if possible and the cultipacking helps me. I always plant my clover for fall with a WR nurse crop. I find the cultipacking helps germination rates on the WR even more. I broadcast it before the clover so the cultipacker works on it and the clover.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Bill]

Either will work. I drilled red clover in with my brassica's in mid July on 7.5 centers. Drilled into killed weeds. The clover choked out the brassica's

This is what it looked like by June.

Here is small patch broadcast into killed weeds last spring. No rolling just broadcast and walked away.

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[yoderjac]

Bill,

I think you are right. Much clover comes from seed and roots. Clover fills in eventually no matter how you do it. Short-lived clovers may fill in a bit faster but it all eventually fills if you plant it for fall.

Thanks,

Jack