Sowing With Or Without A Nurse Crop
Category:
SOME GENERAL PRINCIPLES WHICH APPLY TO THE GROWING OF CLOVERS
Nearly all varieties of clover
are usually sown with a nurse crop; that is, a crop which provides shade
for the plants when they are young and delicate. But the object in
sowing with a nurse crop is not so much to secure protection to the
young plants as to get them established in the soil, so that they will
produce a full crop the following season. Two varieties, however, are
more commonly sown alone. These are alfalfa and crimson clover.
Alfalfa is more commonly sown alone because the young plants are
somewhat delicate and easily crowded out by other plants amid which they
are growing. Because of the several years during which alfalfa will
produce crops when once established, it is deemed proper to sacrifice a
nurse crop in order to get a good stand of the young plants. The other
clovers are usually able to make a sufficient stand, though grown along
with a nurse crop. In some situations alfalfa will also do similarly,
as, for instance, where the conditions are very favorable to its growth.
Crimson clover is more commonly sown alone for the reason, first, that
it is frequently sown at a season when other crops are not being sown;
second, that it grows better without a nurse crop; and third, that if
grown with a nurse crop the latter would have to be used in the same way
as the clover.
Some have advocated sowing clovers without a nurse crop under any
conditions. Such advocacy in the judgment of the author is not wise. It
is true that in some instances a stand of the various clovers is more
certainly assured when they are sown without a nurse crop, but in such
situations it is at least questionable if it would not be better to sow
some other crop as a substitute for clover. But there may be instances,
as where clover will make a good crop of hay the year that it is sown,
when sowing it thus would be justifiable. In a majority of instances,
however, it will not make such a crop, because of the presence of weeds,
which, in the first place, would hinder growth, and in the second, would
injure the quality of the hay.
The nurse crops with which clovers may be sown are the small cereal
grains, as rye, barley, wheat and oats. Sometimes they are sown with
flax, rape and millet. They usually succeed best when sown along with
rye and barley, since these shade them less and are cut earlier, thus
making less draft on moisture in the soil and admitting sunlight at an
earlier period. Oats make the least advantageous nurse crop, because of
the denseness of the shade, but if they are sown thinly and cut for hay
soon after they come into head, they are then a very suitable nurse
crop. One chief objection to flax as a nurse crop is that it is commonly
sown late. The chief virtue in rape as a nurse crop is that the shade is
removed early through pasturing. The millets are objectionable as nurse
crops through the denseness of the shade which they furnish and also
because of the heavy draught which they make on soil moisture. Peas and
vetches should not be used as nurse crops, since they smother the young
clover plants through lodging in the advanced stages of their growth.
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Amounts Of Seed To SowPrevious:
Sowing Alone Or In Combinations
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