My list includes: Teosinte Small Burnet Fava Bean Creeping Alfala
Winfred Brassica kind of counts. I planted it last year for the first time, but with the dryness we had in my area the growth results were poor, but I don't think the plant got a fair chance so I am going to try it again.
Nutritionist: I looked at trying the Small Burnet very hard this year. All the information I could find seemed to indicate this was an up-and-comer around 2004 to 2008 that a lot of people tried due in part to drought resistance. There was a lot of comments that the plant was not a preferred and/or not even liked by deer after it grew. Please keep me updated on that one. I would be very interested.
winfred brassica, radish and berseem clover. If all i had was 3 choices to plant that would be my choices.
Winfred brassica as it's great nutritionally, can be planted about anywhere and stays green down to 5-10 degrees and gives me a lot of nutrients per acre.
Radish as it loosens the soil, scavenges nutrients and rereleases them the following spring (think time release fertilizer in a plant) and deer love to eat it.
Berseem clover. It tolerates low pH's, grows fast, smothering weeds, fixated a lot of nitrogen (i'm cheap and want to buy less fertilizer) and is very palatable to deer.
What i should announce is that I have 2 locations in Wisconsin this year that will be "education plots". Two very generous people gave use of their land and allowed my team and friends to plant pretty much every species one can imagine in these plots. There will be field days, open houses, qdma events, school groups and other public groups welcome to come and learn.
There will be 3 types of plantings done, brillion seeder and 2 broadcast methods. There will be trail cameras set around the plots to take time lapse photos. There will even be drone pictures taken.
I have planted pretty much everything except the 4 items above. In the educational plots i'm guessing there will be 70-80 varieties represented. There is a couple more elements to the plots that i will demonstrate. I will conduct an UNBIAS forage clipping analysis trial. You all will see 55 day samples taken of these forages so you can see how they really test and not rely on claims by companies in the industry that sample their forages at very early growth stages. Day 55 is 5 days from many forages maturity date.
I planted it a couple of years ago as a mixture with some other seeds and it grew very well. It got to be almost waist high and had leaves the size of dinner plates. The deer absolutely loved it.
2nd questions is what is your soul pH
3rd question is when was your first frost this year?
The only thing that will grow and be palatable below 5.5 pH is berseem clover, rape, oats, fall rye and a handful of forbs and forages.
This is why i preach pH, pH, pH....nothing is very palatable that doesn't uptake soil nutrients and nothing maximizes it's growth at low pH's. Your also looking at stunted growth patterns and that leads to poor palatability.
The best money you will ever spend this year is on 6 bags of pelletized lime. No matter what you decide to plant after putting that down will be higher in nutrients and digestibility. Good luck to you.
I overseed a 3 way clover blend, and also my mass builder.
I would like to over seed them with a fiddle spinner in the fall so there will be something left to eat when they all turn brown and are consumed. I would like something that will just take root after falling to the ground between the bean plants, as I don't want to trash the bean patch at that time.
What best forages would you recommend and at what time or month should I do the fiddling?
Thanks, tad
Why do i go this route? The medium red clover will give us more tonnage and the alsike clover will tolerate the shade better, wet areas better and low pH areas better than most clovers. When mother nature comes into play, i always want something that does ok with weather issues. The diversity allows the best of all worlds.
I just frost seeded about 2 acres of ground yesterday. I should have did it a couple days sooner as the ground was bare from snow melt. I like having a couple inches of snow on the ground when i frost seed.
Now on to overseeding soybeans. It depends what kind of soybeans your planting and what location in the US you live. The one downfall of using pure forage soybeans like eagles is that they dont drop their leaves as early and so if you have seed on the ground and no sunlight to get at the seedlings, you won't see much growth until the leaves drop. About this time of year is also when see temps dropping and clover growth slowing down.
I'd prefer people to plant wider rows if your going to underseed or over seed clovers. So, the question is next, what do you want this plot to be the next year? It could turn into a perennial clover plot if your overseed clovers into this stand. I'd still use the 3 way clover blend and then come back in February or early march and overseed more ladino or a ladino/chicory blend if you used the 3 way mix in the late summer or fall.
Another thing you can do is use a smaller seeded, faster growing brassica blend like my frosty delight. The radish/kale/winfred/pasja are really fast growing. I also put a natural growth promoter on all the seed i sell, to help it explode 3 days faster out of the ground and establish more roots. That mix stays green down to 15 degrees and so even if temperatures are cold, you will still see some growth. The small seed size works better for overseeding than if you use larger seeds like the wheats, oats, rye's.
What differences between Eagle beans and the Real World forage beans you sell?