SAK

I am in western PA. We have about 4 acres that have been limed and fertilized about 3 years ago and planted in imperial clover, FM brown's megabucks clover and regular feed store clover. Every year the clover jumps up and looks great, but when the weeds catch it, that is it, even after mowing 3 times a year. I figure chemical control is our only option. What herbicide would be the most useful? I thought of two, butyrac to control the broadleaf weeds and vantage to control the grasses, Am I on the right track? What time of the year do we spray and how often. Or do we use a roundup and kill everything and start over? We have a lot of money in seed, lime and fertilizer but the weeds are killing us.

huntflinger00

Pretty much all your weed killers are non-selective and will kill any broad leaf including the clover.If you wanted to control the weeds you needed to use a pre emergence, weed killer.

Dan O.

For grasses try Fusilade II, Venture or Post ultra. For broadleafed weeds 2,4-DB, Caliber, Cobultox, Tropotox plus, Clovitox plus or Embutox. For grass and weeds: Princep Nine-T, Simadex, Simazine. These are for Ontario. You need to check for USA registration at your local agricultural office. Some herbicides are better for some weeds. You need to match them to what you are trying to eliminate.

BUT; weeds play an important role in deer nutrition, So; unless you're trying to get rid of grass, weeds aren't that bad.


Dan O.

lunchbucket

Ditto to Dan... Usually the weeds are controled by mowing. It would seem that the grasses are more your problem.

Sven

Has this always been a problem, or is it progressively getting worse every year? Clover's normal lifespan in a plot is 4-5 years before you need to do something. When the weeds start to take over the plot, you basically need to start over. Till it under, and plant oats in the spring. Let the oats grow to maturity which will be about July then mow them down. Go in and broadcast your new scratch it into the soil with a disk, harrow, hand rake or whatever. Some of the oat seed from the previous crop will grow as a cover for the new clover and stay green into the fall. The deer will browse on the oats all year, and the clover will start establishing itself in the fall. By the next spring, the clover should be able to take over the plot itself.

This probably isn't what you want to here, but it's just a fact of growing forage crops. If you live in an area that a lot of hay is grown, pay attention to the fields. Every few years the hay fields will be turned to corn. Farmers that raise livestock and grow grain and forage crops have a crop rotation program to maximize the output of their land.

As far as chemicals, unless you have some new Roundup Ready clover, you will kill, or at least stunt, the clover when you spray for broadleaves.

madman

Where i live i see the rotation accur every 2-3 years.