Red Clover

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Mysterious and magical shamrock

I decided to write an article about red clover. The impetus for this was a gift from my daughter to my wife. It was a very expensive German face cream. He really turned out to be amazing.

And since the description of its properties was in German, the women turned to me for a translation. This is where I was surprised. The cream contains red clover extracts. But many summer residents do not even imagine what a useful herb it is.

Red clover (Trifolium pratense) from the legume family. It is a perennial herb with characteristic trifoliate leaves and red, ball-shaped inflorescences - heads formed by small flowers. Clover is a biennial or perennial plant. Of the two cultivated varieties of red meadow clover, late-ripening and early-ripening are distinguished.

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This plant has a well-developed taproot. Clover has numerous lateral and adventitious roots. They have nodules with bacteria that absorb nitrogen from the air. The nitrogen content in clover nodules depends on its biotype. It increases with the age of the plant.

Clover has a cylindrical stem. There are also side stems, they grow from the axils of the leaves. Stipules are scarious and narrowed. Clover inflorescences are capitate and multi-flowered. Flowers are sessile and moth type. Their colors are red, less often purple. Each clover flower has 10 stamens (nine accrete and one spaced), a pistil with a rounded stigma. Mature clover anthers are reniform with a longitudinal groove. They burst when touched by pollinating insects, mainly bees and bumblebees. Ripe clover pollen is reddish-yellow in color. It contains a lot of sugars, which attracts bees. Bees make very useful honey from clover nectar, which also contains life-giving clover pollen.

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Clover agricultural technology

We will talk about the effect of clover on women's wrinkles in the second part, and now I will talk about the benefits of clover for our soil.

Let's talk about the soils that are preferable for growing this valuable crop. Clover grows well on loamy soils, sandy loam, gray wooded and leached soils, as well as in ordinary chernozem. When irrigating crops, it gives an increase in yield on all types of soils. Even in peatlands, it increases the yield during reclamation. Clover requires a lot of moisture, but cannot survive in excess.

Red clover grows best in soil at a pH of 6.0 to 6.5. Its harvest largely depends on the amount of precipitation in April, May, June. At low temperatures, clover grows well even with a low moisture content in the soil. In the northern regions, clover grows best when groundwater begins at a depth of at least 1.5 m from the surface. In the south, this depth should be at least 75 cm.

Late-ripening red clover varieties respond better to fertilizers than early-ripening varieties. In the early stages of growth, clover plants are most in need of phosphorus. The optimum temperature for their development is 17 … 20 ° С. Red clover is a crop of long daylight hours. The sum of active temperatures required for ripening early ripening varieties of clover is 1200-1400 ° С; for late-ripening varieties of clover, this value is 1400-1500 ° C.

Now in the world a lot of attention is paid to the economic miracle of China, but not everyone knows that in China soil fertility has been kept at a high level for millennia, mainly due to the greening of clover. Green clover fertilizer is better than manure fertilization. In the soil, the clover biomass, decomposing, becomes an easily digestible fertilizer, the soil is replenished with humus, enriched with potassium. Thanks to the nodule bacteria that develop on the roots, it extracts nitrogen from the air and accumulates it in the soil, including the subsoil. Nitrogen accumulation - from 40 to 200 kg per hectare of crops.

It is known that the clover root is able to assimilate phosphorus from sparingly soluble compounds. This plant is a dynamically developing crop - a perennial green fertilizer. Red clover is the best choice for fixing nitrogen from the air, controlling weeds and improving soil structure. Its roots penetrate deep into the soil and help to improve its structure.

Clover leafiness helps prevent soil erosion, especially in winter, and it also helps the soil retain more moisture in summer and winter. In a summer cottage, it is very useful to make a lawn from red meadow clover. Thus, you will get a beautiful corner where the soil is improving, and you will also have medicinal plants at hand.

Soil preparation and sowing

As usual, before sowing, the soil should be dug to the depth of a shovel, cleaned of stones, debris, roots and rhizomes of perennial weeds. Liming is imperative if your soil is acidic. Smooth the surface of the site and slightly loosen. After a week, scatter mineral fertilizers there - 400 g of nitrogen, 300 g of phosphorus, 600 g of potassium per 100 m².

After a couple of weeks, when the soil settles, you can start sowing. Before that, level the area again, eliminate germinating weeds. Seeding rate - 10 g of seeds per 1 m², premix the seeds with dry soil in a ratio of 1: 5, it is better to take the soil for this from bushes with wild-growing clover. The sowing depth of seeds is no more than 1 cm. It is to this depth that the site must be loosened with a rake, creating a seedbed.

You can sow seeds from April to October. Sowing is carried out in calm weather and always in moist soil. The sowing itself is carried out in two directions: half of the seeds along the length of the site, and the second part of them along the width. After finishing it, mix the seeds with a rake with the top layer of earth, carefully compact the soil with a light roller and water carefully, not allowing the seeds to wash out. If there are a lot of birds on the site, then the crops need to be protected: pull the ropes crosswise. The sown seeds germinate within 4-10 days. Clover develops slowly in the year of planting; plants reach full development in the second year of life.

Clover crop care

Before and after the emergence of seedlings, it is very important to monitor the soil moisture and timely carry out small-drop irrigation. If it rains, he will do everything himself. The best time to water is early morning or late evening. In the old days, it was recommended to sow clover as follows: in early spring, immediately after the snow melted, sometimes even after the last snow.

Sowing is best on a quiet, early frosty morning, before the ground has thawed from the night frost. As soon as the earth begins to thaw in the daytime, the seeds will stick tightly to the soil, sucked into it along with the water. Clover seeds require as much water as they weigh to germinate.

From old experience: “The roots of clover are very numerous and branchy. All their strength lies not in the main root, which goes to a depth of 5-7 vershoks, but in the side roots, which grow especially densely in the most nutritious, loose part of the arable land, at a depth of the first 5-6 vershoks. In the soil, after a well-developed clover, there remains as much nitrogenous substances and humus as they are introduced when fertilizing fields with manure in the amount of 2400 poods per 1 state tithe. Concluding this article, I want to say that red meadow clover is our health and the health of our land in our summer cottage. In addition, the small red clover lawn is very beautiful and unusual.

Read the second part: On the benefits of red clover →