Spreading Harvested Crimson Clover

[bigbendmarine]

Wondering if anyone on the forum has tried this exact method of spreading harvest clover seed heads. Guy in the video is obviously not going to the trouble of trying to separate the small seeds from the chaff (bells, pods, whatever clover seed coverings are called!). Down my way in Florida I already have very good luck with reseeding via mowing clover once heads have dried / gone to seed so don't see why it wouldn't work. Have mixes of crimson, arrowleaf, and ladino growing in spots across my place but versus just mowing / reseeding exactly where it already is I've thought about filling up a 5 gallon bucket with heads from each type (once all dried) and spreading them in a straight line path that my deer are already naturally using to travel from clover spot to clover spot.

 

[bigbendmarine]

Might should add that in zone 8b Crimson is somewhat perennial-like in that it reseeds quite well (grows along many of highways each spring). I'm thinking that I'll store dry until a good rain is in the forecast and spread right before? Also had wondered if any advantage planting now versus fall as typically do include clovers in my fall mixes. Mowing that reseeds it / spreads it is something I generally do right about now as I hold off until I see the heads have turned brown.

 

[Bill]

No experience but for you in Florida it wouldn't be hard to convince me it would work.

 

[yoderjac]

I think the question becomes efficiency. Seems like a lot of work to move clover to a new location. Mowing to reseed makes sense. Just seems like a lot of work. Crimson seed is about $35/acre around here. I wonder how long it takes to collect enough seed and distribute it to cover an acre.

Perhaps if one had a mower that could be adjusted high enough to get above most of the clover but would cut the seed heads and attach a bagger you could cover the collection. I'm not sure how one would distribute it evenly over an acre. I'd have to do some thinking about that.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[bigbendmarine]

Yoderjac, I've got some very thick spots of crimson and can collect seed heads quickly. Also for the particular spot I'm thinking of trying to manually collect / throw some out the total acreage is only about 1/4 of an acre. Might help to share a visual. From early spring until around early September, many mornings I see deer in my back yard traveling east to heavier cover / bedding to the west (open pasture out of picture to east / thick plantation cover to west). Dead center of the proposed path already has a thick stand of crimson as do the darker green plots on both the east and west side of the path I marked. I'm just thinking about throwing a road sized lane portion out to give them more to munch on / hold them for photos as they cross.

Collected about 2 gallons of crimson seed heads quickly yesterday, but also want to throw some arrowleaf in with it and be a week or two before it's ready. Also want to try and do closer to a good rain and unfortunately none in the forecast at the moment. Since won't cost me anything but a little time, think I'm going to go ahead and do it. Will try to follow-up down the road if / when I see signs of success or failure.

 

[yoderjac]

Let us know how it works out and if you think the results are worth the effort.

 

[TreeDaddy]

Seems a poor "juice/squeeze" ratio......

bill

 

[bigbendmarine]

I've got a few thick stands so it was easy enough filling a bucket with seed head chaff. With the chaff being fluffy found it didn't go too far before I had to refill my bucket. Did about 1/3 of the marked area shared earlier in crimson. Now waiting for few good patches of arrowleaf to go to seed so I can use them to complete the run.

Since "free" other than time spent plucking heads, I actually enjoyed it as a small test project. Will say this, if I was blessed to have a few teen boys I TOTALLY would be good with giving them the task to spread clover to desired areas.

At this point just praying rains from Alberto didn't wash away what I spread out... went from near drought to near flood over the past 2 weeks with almost 7 inches of rain dumped on us.