Sweet Clovers: A Biennial Legume That Fixes Nitrogen and Feeds Bees

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0:14 One of the more useful and I think underutilized groups of cover crops are the sweet clovers. Sweet clovers are

0:24 Traditionally, historically, were one of the most widely used cover crops in American agriculture and really throughout the world. They have a number.

0:33 Of advantages they have the ability to grow on very poor soil which is useful as for a cover crop their legume they're great nitrogen fixers they have a huge.

0:47 Tap root they have an ability to free up unavailable phosphorus and potassium from bound forms in the soil so they have a lot of good uses what we're.

0:59 Looking at here, this is Hubei sweet clover. Most sweet clovers are biennials. They grow vegetative, they grow up, produce seed in the early spring grow.

1:11 Vegetatively that first year and then the next spring they'll shoot up and produce flower and produce seed. Hubei M is different, it's an annual sweet clover.

1:25 And it behaves differently depending on where it grows throughout the country. Here in the North this is planted in the spring some time and will flower and.

1:52 Great benefits of hue bam is this is October 3rd and look at all this bloom here. If you're concerned about honeybees, pollinators, producing honey.

2:06 Yourself this bloom very late in the season is what honey bee hives depend upon for their winter survival so this late bloom nectar and pollen flow is

2:19 Very very important for bees if you are interested in pollinators or honey production. I think this is a tremendously valuable plant in addition.

2:32 To what it does in the soil, it's got nice tap roots that penetrate hard pans. A lot of nitrogen and ability to free up nutrients. It is also somewhat useful as a grazing plant. So I think there's a lot to like about this plant and I think we ought to be using more of it.