I have two plots of land. Both are about 1.5 acrers. Deer numbers are not a problem, but our goal is to plant clover in both fields. Question is do we go the conservative route and weed kill and also lime? Or do we "just go for it" and mow the grass and start seeding??

Currently I am thinking we go the conservative route with one field and the "just go for it route" with the other. If the latter works then we saved time and money. If it doesn't then the former route would be the approach with both.

We have a soil sample off to the lab now, but we don't know when we will get it back. Maybe a another week or so. We really want to move on this and wonder if we should just go ahead and spend the money on weedkiller to apply this Saturday to at least one plot.

Can any of you chime in and give your opinion on what would be the best approach?

I really appreciate it.

Any weeds you kill now you won't have to deal with later, perenial stuff in particular

Lime should have been put out 5 or 6 months ago, but at least it is cheap enough you can put out 8 or 10 tons and let it start working. If you do a $3 plot you have a good chance of winding up with a season that is wasted. Why don't you go ahead and do the plot right?

I agree going about it conservatively will manage the risk much better. I just want to get a feel on how much I can minimize the cost and time. I talked to a local farmer and he said the lime and weed killer were a waste of time and money.

This didn’t correlate with the research I have been doing. I don’t necessarily put 100% stock in “textbook” answers I have found on the Internet, but I wanted to explore my options especially after speaking with the farmer.

The "farmer" will soon be out of business.

Maybe your local farmer knows his soil - and what it can support. That doesn't mean yours will too..... but it might.

I'd wait for the soil test. As long as the Ph is neart 6.0 - Clover will Germinate. Still - you need to lime id possible toget it closer to 6.5-(and I would ALWAYS spray Roundup before disking & planting). DOn't rush to fail. A good clover plot will last 4-5 years with only mowing.

FH

if you "go for it" and just mow the grass and start seeding, you are wasting your time and money. one year from now you'll still have a field of grass that you'll have to do something about. glyphosate is alot cheaper than sethoxydim, by a magnitude of at least 20x.

If you don't kill the grass, you will have a grass field with some clover growing in it. For a few extra dollars, you can kill the grass with glysophate and have a really nice clover field.

spray the weeds

After reading these posts and some more consideration we decided to go ahead and just spray weed killer. We used Hombre. We will see how good it does after a couple days, and then eventually disc and lime.

I agree, better to do it right the first time and reap the benefits later. Here's hoping some rain will help out in the near future.

Thanks to everybody who responded.