I'm in south east Mn and just clear cut a quarter acre food plot. Planning on a pea, oat, rye grain fall planting. I just sent in my soil sample last week and should be getting that back soon. My question is, what should I do this spring as far as planting a nurse crop to get me to fall? Oats and an annual clover? Do nothing and spray the weeds end of July before fall planting? Buckwheat? Any ideas are appreciated.
Nurse crop
- Thread starter Mnydir1
- Start date
scott44
5 year old buck +
I plant oats and a mix of annual and perenial clovers ( Ladino and crimson ) after my brassicas in the spring and it works good. You might want to leave a strip of clovers through this plot when doing your fall plot. Depending on your prep spring planted plots can be more weedy but if your plan is to terminated the oats/clover it shouldn't be a problem,
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Concur on buckwheat. This is not really a nurse crop. When you plant WR with perennial clover in the fall, the WR is considered a nurse crop. It protects the clover from weeds the following spring and then dies to release the clover. That is why they call it a nurse crop. What you are talking about is commonly called a cover crop. Basically, it is a crop you are planting for the primary purpose of covering the land to conserve soil and scavenge nutrients for a subsequent crop. Not that any of this matters, but I thought you might want to know when you are reading articles in the future.
Thaks,
Jack
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Perennial clover does not grow at low temps but WR will grow during warm up periods after a frost. Deer still use clover on my place after a frost. I'm not saying it is the most attractive late, but it is used. Some brassica, like turnips, don't get much use until after a frost or two. I wasn't suggesting clover was what you should plant in the fall. I was just giving an example of nurse crop use.
Thanks,
Jack
Bassattackr
5 year old buck +
I would disagree. Clover is great after a frost and stays green well into winter here in MO. Even red annual clover. They will eat it through the winter until it's completely gone on my place.
If you're doing a fall cereal/clover mix, there are no "nurse" crops to plant now to jump start this plan. I would wait until fall and just plant that mix if that's your goal. A typical nurse crop strategy is to plant a cereal grain with clover in the fall, then mechanically terminate the cereal grain(s) in the spring, leaving a nice clover stand. A cereal grain like oats, rye have allopathic chemicals that inhibit weed growth and provide soil coverage/competition from weed growth. Then in the fall you can terminate/disc/till in the clover and plant brassicas (that use the nitrogen released by clover) or replant the same system again.
If you want spring/summer food, you can definitely plant cover, spring oats, etc as others have suggested. But you'll likely have to reprep somehow for your fall plot.
S.T.Fanatic
5 year old buck +
What do you have for equipment?
If this is the first year this will be in production you will likely have a lot of weeds in the seed bank. I would let them germinate next spring and then spray round-up in May. Then a couple weeks later I would disk up the area and let it sit for another month before a final spraying. Then you should be ready to plant.
I would plant in late July/ early August and I would also add in a little bit of groundhog radishes and also some clover. Then next year you will have a clover/rye plot that will be a straight clover plot the following year.
1/4 acre is pretty small, so it is easy to plant too much seed. I haven't had any issue with having too much clover seed, but if you plant the oat, pea and rye too thick they will end up stunted and spindly.
I would plant in late July/ early August and I would also add in a little bit of groundhog radishes and also some clover. Then next year you will have a clover/rye plot that will be a straight clover plot the following year.
1/4 acre is pretty small, so it is easy to plant too much seed. I haven't had any issue with having too much clover seed, but if you plant the oat, pea and rye too thick they will end up stunted and spindly.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Backwards if you are talking about perennial clover. IF you want to control weeds in the summer, plant buckwheat in the spring. That lets you get started on weed control in the spring when you plant and the buckwheat will out compete many weeds. You have much less to control when you plant in the fall. Plant your cereal grain with the perennial clover in the fall. Winter Rye is best for this. The cereal becomes the attractant for fall. The clover barely germinates unless you get the right conditions in the fall. However, it takes off the next spring. Perennial clover spends a lot of energy putting down a root system. The Winter Rye will take off in the spring taking up space and resources from weeds while the clover is establishing a root system. WR also has a chemical effect on weed seed germination. You just mow back the rye in the spring to release the clover when the WR begins to shade it out. This will keep the WR alive as long as possible and the clover will take over. Eventually the WR will die naturally during summer, but by then, the clover will dominate the field.
Having said that, once you have a well established cover field, you can top-kill it and drill cereal or radish into it. The key is timing. You need to have rain in the forecast and cool evenings in the fall that favor clover. The cereal grain or radish will germinate and get a few inches tall and then the clover will bounce back from the established root system. I only do this with older perennial clover fields (5-10 years old)
Thanks,
Jack
Bassattackr
5 year old buck +
You definitely could provided you can get seed to soil contact. You might be fighting warm season annual weeds if you only plant clover in the spring (with no nurse crop). You could however lightly disc thru the clover to thin / open it up some for fall cereal grains.
S.T.Fanatic
5 year old buck +
Plant your annual in the spring with oats. Spray and start over in September with a perennial clover chicory mix and a winter rye nurse crop. Spray late July and plant if you want to transition to a brassica plot.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
You can plant an annual clover in the spring with or without a nurse crop. Annual clovers don't spend the spring putting down an extensive root system and compete better with weeds. Legumes like clover will respond more to K in general.
Thanks,
Jack
S.T.Fanatic
5 year old buck +
By mowing the annual clover oat combo after you plant your perennial clover/chicory mix (don't leave out the chicory!!) you will get free annual clover and oat seed.
