I've grown it for a few years now. I planted it ~3 years ago from seed I bought from Welters. I followed the suggestions on not mowing it for a month or more after flowering.
The following year, I was a little disappointed in the amount of balansa that was in my plots, but there was a presence of the stuff. This year, there seems to be a bit more of it, so I'm a little happier with it.
Balansa seed is very hard and can lay dormant in the soil for years. I suppose that's a good thing, because once you allow it to produce it's own seed, you will get clover for several years. The down side to that is that, at least in my limited experience with balansa, it won't be a solid stand. It'll be there, but if you want a jam-packed plot of pure balansa, it may not happen. That's the way it went with my plots.
Seems that the original planting produced a great stand, but the actual plant produced seed didn't do quite as well as the original, Welter-bought seed. But it is growing, and I like that.
The deer like it, too. The stems are hollow and succulent, and I assume have a high percentage of digestibility throughout the entire plant. The is an impressive amount of tonnage in a balansa plot. The stuff grows pretty tall. That 1st year, I don't think the deer ate it as much in the very beginning, so it grew without them eating to the ground. It got almost 2 feet before it lost it's ability to stand on it's own, and it produced tons of flowers, and I assume seeds, too. The bees loved the stuff.
It also seems to be fairly tolerant of wet areas.
