Clover and Cover Crop Trials
The winter-spring of 2018-19 will go down in the history books as one of the wettest on record. These videos were taken in Texas in January 2019 and in early May trials in northern Louisiana and Central Mississippi.
Luling, Texas
We saw these plots at the end of January after 90 days of growth and 15 inches of rain – a bit abnormal for that part of the country. The rain seemed to be a clear factor, challenging some species and helping other species.
Winnsboro, Louisiana
We caught the annual clover trial before its third cutting. The white clover entries, including Renovation, all looked very good, as did the red clovers, including GA-9908. There was one balansa entry, Viper, which was very active with bees. There were a couple of experimental crimson clover varieties, which looked very promising.
Newton, Mississippi
We walked through both cover crop and annual clover plots. Note that much of what these videos show at this time is regrowth ability and maturity differences. Those entries that either had good regrowth or are later maturing were thriving, while other early maturing and/or those with poorer regrowth were either played out our much thinner. Species differences were very apparent. For example, crimson is an early maturing species and exhibited minimal vegetation, while the red clovers, most balansas, berseems and Persians exhibited much more abundant growth.