Any ideas for sowing clover as cover crop under Eucalyptus Forest?

soarwitheagles

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Hi again everyone!

I hope everyone is doing well!

Ok, title says it all...

Any ideas for sowing clover as cover crop under Eucalyptus Forest?

I just started purchasing dozens of pounds of crimson clover and began to sow the seed in the back forest.

We have never let the sheep out into the back forest due to coyote concerns. Well, now I am beginning to think some neighbor or some angel of death decimated the coyotes. We have had our sheep out in the back forest for three weeks, and no problems! Yeah! They now have free food for 6 months or more.

I think most of what grows on the forest floor is wild oats with a nice variety of forbs. The sheep are devouring both the ground cover and lots of the Eucalyptus leaves and branches. I would like to "enrich" the forest floor by planting clover. I just finished broadcasting 30 lbs of crimson clover. I am also thinking about sowing rose clover and/or subterranean clover.

Cheers!
 

babsbag

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I thought that the Eucalyptus pretty much kept other plants from growing under them. Is that not the case? Your bees will like the clover if it grows. I have 25 lbs of dutch clover to plant in my orchard, guess I better get to it.
 

soarwitheagles

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I thought that the Eucalyptus pretty much kept other plants from growing under them. Is that not the case? Your bees will like the clover if it grows. I have 25 lbs of dutch clover to plant in my orchard, guess I better get to it.

Hi babs,

I heard that too, but to be honest with you, wild oats grow up to 4 ft. tall every year in the forest. Also, massive amounts of all different types of forbs.

Your dutch clover should do well in your orchard!
 

Bossroo

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Isn't it about time to take out your chainsaw and thin out that forest ? One to increase the soil moisture and two to increase sunshine amount for the grasses and clovers as those euks get mighty thirsty and their leaves shade the ground. That should increase the tonnage of feed and LOWER your feed bill to the max.
 

greybeard

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If you have deer, they'll love you for sowing that crimson. They devastated about 10 acres I planted last year at 15 lb/acre. seed $$ + fertilize down the drain.
 

soarwitheagles

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Isn't it about time to take out your chainsaw and thin out that forest ? One to increase the soil moisture and two to increase sunshine amount for the grasses and clovers as those euks get mighty thirsty and their leaves shade the ground. That should increase the tonnage of feed and LOWER your feed bill to the max.

Yes indeed it is time to thin out this forest and that is our plan. We hope to start thinning this month, then by next year at this time will have lots of seasoned wood to sell too. I need to thin and buck all on the same days...so all cutting is on green wood. It would be so easy to simply go and down several hundred trees, but then bucking them next year would be 10 times the work. So we hope to thin, buck, then after the bucked pieces dry out, do the splitting.

And I hope you are right about a large increase in grasses and clovers. This is the very first year we have tried this.

If you have deer, they'll love you for sowing that crimson. They devastated about 10 acres I planted last year at 15 lb/acre. seed $$ + fertilize down the drain.

We have seen deer not far away, so maybe this will draw some in and then we can have the deer jerky when deer is in season here!

We had over 5 inches of rain in October at this property and this is both a miracle and very rare [newspaper sources are saying the second largest amount of rain in October in many, many years]. For some reason, at this property, we received much more rain than the surrounding areas...so this kicked started all the green growth in a marvelous way! We went from everything dead and brown on the ground to luscious green beginning to sprout everywhere and it only took 2-3 weeks! Wow!

I measured some of the grasses in our planted fields and they are already 6-8 inches. The wild oats in the forest are up to 4-6 inches.

I am posting some pictures of the forest floor. As mentioned above, this is the very first time I ever permitted the sheep into the forested area due to coyote challenges. Today I watched them browse and it was amazing. I discovered they like to eat the dead dry grass from last year, the fresh new green grass [wild oats], the Eucalyptus bark wrappings that are everywhere on the ground, fresh green Eucalyptus leaves, and a myriad of forbs on the ground right now. They have been out in the forest for over a week and the sheep are beginning to rapidly fill out. For safety reasons, we are having them return to the fenced in sheep pen every night. Someone told me coyotes most like to hunt/feed at night. I sure hope it is true!

Dang, now I am wishing I had put the sheep out in the forest last year. There are 12+ acres of this forest and I think I could populate with many more sheep for the next 5 months of "free" feed. I am thinking about broadcasting a couple of hundred pounds of clover now. A neighbor rancher suggested to populate with 100 sheep in this forest beginning next month.

Any thought on this?

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Baymule

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You have quite the flock! They look fat and sassy. What about white Dutch clover? It is low growing, recovers well from grazing and will re-seed. Be sure to take your sheep off the woods pasture so the grasses can go to seed and come back next year.
 

soarwitheagles

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You have quite the flock! They look fat and sassy. What about white Dutch clover? It is low growing, recovers well from grazing and will re-seed. Be sure to take your sheep off the woods pasture so the grasses can go to seed and come back next year.

Baymule,

Yes, I also planted Ladino clover. Not sure if it is much different than the white Dutch. I also just purchased a few dozen pounds of the rose clover and I also hope to find some of the subterranean clover as well.

I see no rain for the next few weeks, so now I am not sure if I should wait to sow more clover seed. Last batch I sowed was immediately before or after a large rain....
 

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