Sweet Clover: Three Varieties for Nitrogen Fixation and Pollinator Bloom

0:13 What I'm standing in here are different varieties of sweet clover—three separate species of sweet flavored sweet clover. I think it's a really underutilized plant we should be using. Sweet clover at one time was the number one cover crop in America prior to World War 2 and the advent of cheap nitrogen.

0:40 Fertilizer sweet clover was used extensively throughout the United States, very popular in the Corn Belt. They used to use sweet clover as a green manure crop prior to growing into top the corn and at the yield levels we had at that time, so plowing down the plant hasn't changed. Still a very beneficial plant, not only is a great.

1:25 Nitrogen fixer. It's got a very deep taproot. A lot of these clovers spawn a large seed in the, you don't have good. Caffrey's sweet clover has a monster taproot. It's almost as deep as alfalfa and gets deep quicker than alfalfa. Plants we've got, like I said, three different types of.

1:52 Sweet clover yellow blossom sweet flavor, which is the most commonly used sweet flavor. Probably the most drought tolerant of the sweet flavors, it is the first to bloom in the spring. All the sweet clovers we would typically seed in this area in early spring.

2:13 The sweet clover is a biennial so if Chris vegetatively the

2:19 First year goes through the winter and then blooms in this area starting in May. It continues blooming through June. So what we got here is of course the first year vegetative growth. White sweet Clifford, their white blossom sweet clover is another biennial plant. Spring of one year, so this is 2019. Throat is vegetatively in 2019 and then the spring.

2:49 Of 2020 this will be enough big and tall. He will start blooming and so it kind of hands off the bloom in a relay race too from Gila blossom sweet flavor and then this will take over for about an additional month and it gets a little bit larger than the yellow blossom sweet clover fixes a little more total nitrogen it takes a little longer to do.

3:22 It's not quite as rapid developing as the yellow blossom, slightly different hue. BAM sweet clover over here is an annual sweet clover. It will in the northern areas like here in Nebraska, we can spring plant this and it will start blooming in August. So it'll bloom August, September clear on up till frost, and for people.

4:16 Evolutionary get in but few BAM clover is one of those plants that can do that. It has a quick turnaround time between bloom and seed set, so this can bloom late in the year when nothing else is blooming pretty much.

4:33 So that makes this honeybees, pollinators of all kinds, attracting ladybugs, amazing localized other things.

4:54 In the south, cue BAM is used as a winter annual. It's a fall plant and it's one of the first things to bloom the following spring. Depending on where you use it, BAM is used differently. In the northern areas, here you get north of about I-40, this is a spring plant. You get south of I-40, it's a fall planning crop and all the.

5:24 Sweet clovers are not plants that you want to make hay out of. They make very poor quality hay that gets molding. It can cause some issues with animals, failure of blood clot. As a grazing plant though, these plants are fine. They're not super palatable, but they are very nutritious. They have a bitter flavor that they're high in protein.

5:48 Digestible once animals get accustomed to it very well faster. So as long as you don't try to make a out of them, very versatile plants. Deep taproot I'll free up unavailable phosphorus, potassium in the soil to make a lot of nitrogen wrinkles for kids. There's a lot to like.

6:33 Holland production, nectar production starting very good honey. Penny quality and yield of honey three.