The book will help you no doubt - Also - sometimes experience is the best teacher - and as long as you learn as you go -you'll make out all right - you need to keep an open mind and note POSITIVES and NEGATIVES as you go.

Just the fact that Red clover is growing only tells you the spot has potential. White clovers might fail miserably - and a pure stand of Red clover might not fare a well as a few plants here and there. The only way (cheapest way) to know - is a soil test.

Burning can help some - no doubt. - but if pH is lacking - buring alone will not help much -its sometimes a short term boost for residual seeds to really get going. Again a soil test will tell you if you need lime ( you probably do ) - and how much to get to 6.0-6.5 pH.


Personally - I don't like mixing Red & White clovers on purpose. Red clovers are more like Alfafa - in that they grow fast and tall. There is a lot of stalk, and is more suited to cattle thandeer in my opinion. They also tend to shade out white clovers in the mix - which rarely get over 12" tall. If some red clovers chow up in my white clover plots - I'm OK with that however - I mow them along with the weeds. In my expereince - if you have red & white clovers combined (or alsike & Whites) the deer will eat the White Clovers.

Chicory is a good mix with white clovers, I can attest to this mix - I don't know about with red clover. Keep them mowed - and any mower that evenly spreads the clippings is fine (you don't want a windrow left).

FH