Deer love to eat clover and it is good for them with lots of protein. You can opt for them to create food plots for these wild animals. The perennial clovers are an optimum browsing option for the deer. They are soaring in popularity as the primary alternative for a bunch of wildlife enthusiasts and professionals.
There are different benefits to plant the clover for the deer. You can plant for it easily without the need to use complex and expensive equipment. The frost-seeding will occur during the mid-winter, once the clover is non-existent and low. Through mid-winter, the established food plots get grazed, thereby enabling improved soil surface exposure.
These clovers showcase high tolerance towards the soil along with marginal fertility. They are a good solution for the soil, with a pH between 6.0-6.5. Since they are legumes, you do not need any extra nitrogen fertilizer for the pure clover stands.
How to plant clover
Clover happens to be a wonderful ground cover to plant in place of the turfgrass to seek the dense, thick lawn. If the soil has poor draining quality, you will be capable of planting the clovers for the prevention of turfgrass issues. Once you properly plant the clover at the prerequisite temperature, the ground cover will faster sprout up from the soil.
Germination time
Once the clove seeds get planted on the prepared soils correctly, they will sprout in 3 days during the summer season. In addition, clovers will sprout and germinate in less than seven days as the temperature reaches around 50 degrees F. The sprouting and germination times depend on the right sowing techniques and soil preparation. As you throw the clove seeds over the grass or soil, it will increase the sprouting times.
Preparing the lawn
The clovers are planted in the soil with the 6.4pH. If you plant the clover out of the range, the ground cover will fail to absorb the prerequisite nutrients to accomplish proper growth. If you want to measure the soil pH range, you require sending the soil sample to the office.
In the next step, you need to apply the soil amendments, depending on the results. The soil below 6.4pH is amended through lime. You should amend the alkaline soils with the aid of sulphur.
Planting of clover seeds
The total amount of distributed clover seeds depends on whether the clovers should be the primary ground cover to grow in the lawn. The gardeners need to put the clover seed at 2-8 oz in every 1,000 sq ft. Once you sow the clovers at about 8 oz in every 1,000 sq. ft, you can opt for the ground cover as the primary plant.
If you want to adopt the even distribution, you should combine the clover seeds along with the sawdusts. The application of the clover seeds within the clumps will lead to seeds for the completion of one another, thereby reducing the establishment time.
Clover for attracting deer
The clover is a perennial plant that will grow back in no time after the deer browses heavily or after the mowing. Deer attract the clover as it offers lush green forage during different times of the year. Even if the deer is fond of consuming clover too much, you can be ensured that you are not going to run out of them.
A wide assortment of people grows the clover as they can be maintained easily. The deer do not like the stemmy clover plants. Hence, you should ensure that they do not reach full maturity. You can do so through simple mowing. In the clover food plot, you need to mow the clover to about 6 inches in height so that you can keep the deer in check.
Mowing also plays an integral role in keeping the weeds and other unwanted plants at bay. These plants have the tendency to grow faster with sufficient sunlight and moisture. If you mow the broadleaf grasses and weeds, they will provide sufficient time to give a head start to the clover.
You can consider adding the clover to the lawn. It is useful to fill in the bare lawn patches, in which growing the grass can be challenging. The seed is sewn onto the established turf grasses directly. You require mowing the grass at the low setting, after which you need to rake out the built-up thatch. Next to this, you need to mix the seed with the fine compost, sawdust, soil, sand for the even distribution.
The best thing about clovers is that they can grow faster, thereby offering outstanding beauty to the lawn areas. They get produced over the long season, which can attract the deer. Since they are grown in massive masses, you can plant them for covering the bare soil. Besides this, they are useful to add ornaments in the weedy areas and fields.
Clover species
There are more than 300 various species of clover. The most common among them is the white clover and red clovers. They are recognized as the perennial legume that can grab the attention of the whitetail deer and other kinds of wildlife species.
The red clovers are a bit popular in different kinds of conditions. However, they are not that attractive, like other white varieties. You should offer the prerequisite protection against failure due to various growing conditions that are not favorable to one another.
The pure clover stands are known to act as outstanding food plots for deer. It is encompassed into a mixture of seeds and different species. Such forages offer a better food resource to the white-tailored deer. A good plot can produce 2-4 tons of digestible plant matter per acre.
It offers the prerequisite nutrition to the deer. You can grow them in a plethora of food plot environments. It does wonders if you prepare a good seedbed after which the seeds come into firm contact within the soil. Though clover can endure a bunch of wet conditions, they tend to survive in the hot-dry conditions, primarily in the areas, during the summer days.
