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Clover- How often to mow?

I understand that you want to cut clover before it gets 'woody' and cut it 6-8 inches.

Can you cut clover to much?

yes you can cut to much, I only cut to spread seed and kill taller weeds. Clover can grow so tight as to prevent weeds from ever getting started. In the north it chokes out almost every grass, down south it dies back to allow weeds to grow in the summer, so your area your in will change your cutting or even not cutting it. Clover (White) flowers and then the seeds grow and the flower heads die and start to curl back to the ground, let them due this, it adds seed to your plot. if cutting is needed to remove weeds then six" is a safe height for most types. just don't mow it in a heat wave of 95 plus for weeks or you risk given other plants room to invade .

Agree with r-man. Also mowing is good for keeping unwanted grasses (for me Johnson grass is the worst) from maturing to the point they produce a seed. It takes a while to eat up the seed bank but cutting sure does help by not allowing plants to add to it.

yea mow your crimson once and next yr it gone. Pat has his perfect, around the edge, I wonder about durana and are sc heat , hard to keep clovers alive here in the summer. Pat when due you take the fences down? and let them play

What brand of fence system is that?

Depends on the blend of clovers. Generally it means 1-2 times per season depending on location. If one has your soil correct and good growing seasons like this year, there could be a 3 time clipping. I generally subscribe to 2 times as the common clovers are a 2 cut system. If one used growth promoters and plant foods then you can and might need to clip a third time. In managed intensive grazing the rule is clip half and leave half, for faster regrowth. With food plotting, i generally say leave 6-8 inches of growth. I want to clip as the clovers are blossoming out and producing seed heads. You do this because your forage quality drops every day that a forage matures. For example with alfalfas you can lose 1-5 points of relative feed value in a day. With clovers this number is like 1/2-1 point a day. If one is trying to grow huge deer, you need fresh forage that is growing rapidly and with a dense sward.

You don't want to clip too late in the season, as we want the plant to uptake nutrients and store them to get through the winters. I clipped many of my plots last week and i'll probably be done clipping except for one experimental mix that has alfalfa, sainfoin, trefoil and chicory. That mix will need to be clipped in 1 month again as that will be the plot where i want ideal forages to be consummed during late bow and gun season. Alfalfas we need to treat differently that clovers.

This is the second year for this clover plot. I don't know the different type of clover but I suppose it is white clover (white flower). There is also chickory mixed in. I used a sickle mower in mid June when it was about 3' tall. I took a weed wacker to it in mid July. Our first frost is around the end of September.

My goal is to attract deer to it in Oct, Nov and Dec.

Would it be best to leave it alone or cut it again?

I have had to mow every two weeks this summer to keep the weeds from going to seed

Nutritionist. PM sent

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