Red clover silage

We make quite a bit of clover silage. If it’s pure clover with absolutely no grass or cereals (etc) it can be difficult to conserve. For crops like that we bale it and give it 32 wraps of plastic.
If it’s got something like grass or cereals in the cut we pit it because there’ll be enough sugars in them to conserve in the pit.
 
Sheebadog said:
We make quite a bit of clover silage. If it’s pure clover with absolutely no grass or cereals (etc) it can be difficult to conserve. For crops like that we bale it and give it 32 wraps of plastic.
If it’s got something like grass or cereals in the cut we pit it because there’ll be enough sugars in them to conserve in the pit.
Click to expand...
It’s all bales I make. Do you feed to beef or dairy. I was thinking of using in for dairy cows.
How many cuts you get off it. Cut with conventional mower conditioner??
 
glengare said:
It’s all bales I make. Do you feed to beef or dairy. I was thinking of using in for dairy cows.
How many cuts you get off it. Cut with conventional mower conditioner??
Click to expand...
We feed it to everything. Cheap source of protein. It should be about 20-25% protein.

It’s never a good idea to mow clover with a conditioner so we mow it without a conditioner and just rake up when dry.
We don’t use multi-cut clovers just single cut.
 
i had a grass/red clover ley in and had 3 cuts off it
1st cut would be 12/14 ton fresh weight to the acre
2nd 10/12t
3rd 10t
19% protein without trying
 
headcase said:
dose of slurry in feb, about 3k gallons to the acre and some 0/20/30 a bit later
did once try 40 units of N in the spring but didnt see a lot of diference
it grew like stink for 4 years then really ran out of steam in the 5th
Click to expand...
That’s serious production for very little fert
 
headcase said:
i had a grass/red clover ley in and had 3 cuts off it
1st cut would be 12/14 ton fresh weight to the acre
2nd 10/12t
3rd 10t
19% protein without trying
Click to expand...
headcase said:
dose of slurry in feb, about 3k gallons to the acre and some 0/20/30 a bit later
did once try 40 units of N in the spring but didnt see a lot of diference
it grew like stink for 4 years then really ran out of steam in the 5th
Click to expand...

that’s some going for very little imput. Might strongly consider it next spring. Or when is best to sow it. Was that mixed with grass?
 
Just be careful, no quicker way to burn carbon off of land, than grow straight clover as it just so good at producing N
 
headcase said:
i had a grass/red clover ley in and had 3 cuts off it
1st cut would be 12/14 ton fresh weight to the acre
2nd 10/12t
3rd 10t
19% protein without trying
Click to expand...

Did you graze it at all then? My understanding is that if it is let go too far It's not much use either, needs to be cut at the optimal time, how did you find it if cutting was delayed or is a dry land crop?
 
nashmach said:
Did you graze it at all then? My understanding is that if it is let go too far It's not much use either, needs to be cut at the optimal time, how did you find it if cutting was delayed or is a dry land crop?
Click to expand...
Sheeps went on it a bit in the winter
It's not really a grazing crop as red clover grows from its crown so doesn't like over grazing or low cutting
 
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