Pasturing
Category:
ALFALFA
Japan clover is much used in providing grazing in the
South. Some writers have spoken of it as being the most valuable grazing
plant that grows in the South. Viewed from the standpoint of
productiveness, this would be assigning it too high a place, since
Bermuda grass produces more grazing, but taking productiveness and the
probable influence exerted on soil fertility together, the estimate may
be correct. The ease with which Japan clover may be propagated is also a
strong point in its favor.
Since it starts late in the spring, it only provides grazing during the
summer and autumn months, from May, June or July onward, according to
the locality, and it fails with the appearance of the first heavy
frosts. In moist situations, it will furnish grazing during all the
summer and autumn, if not allowed to seed, but in time of drought, it
may wither on dry, thin soils and come on again when the rains of autumn
begin to fall. In order to keep the grazing tender and palatable, it
should be reasonably close. If allowed to mature much seed before
grazing begins, the plants will then die, to the great injury of the
grazing.
That stock do not take kindly to it at first, as they do to alfalfa and
some other plants, cannot be doubted. But they can soon learn to relish
it. It has been praised both for milk and meat production; hence, the
aim should be to have it in all permanent pastures. In some of these it
may be necessary to sow a few pounds of seed per acre at the first. If
the grazing is not too close, the plants thereafter will sufficiently
re-seed the land. It has been found quite possible in short rotations to
secure pasture from Japan clover without sowing it on land on which it
has once grown. But to accomplish this effectively, the grazing must not
be so close as to preclude a self-seeding. By growing such plants for
winter and spring grazing, as turf oats and sand vetches, and then
grazing the Japan clover, which will grow later on lands thus managed,
grazing may be furnished indefinitely from year to year.
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Harvesting For HayPrevious:
Sowing
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