Thanks!



It won't be long. My clover is starting to pop its head up some too along with some hairy vetch.

When do you know it's the right time to mow it down?

You need to let it go to seed to be able to terminate by mowing. If you do anything any sooner than that then you’ll need to spray. The cereal grains will go to seed around the end of April or early May. These spring months are the time when you want to let your clover do its thing. It should thrive for the next couple months.

So...... Late April throw out some Buckwheat and Turnips/Radishes and then mow the cereals to the ground?

Yes……Something to keep in mind though and I’ll throw this out there again…..is that we’re not really just trying to grow a field of turnips and buckwheat alone...or whatever it may be. You’re just adding them into the mix and giving the field some more diversity. You still want some of the natural summer growth to grow as well. Our goal with this method during the summer is to produce biomass while still keeping the field attractive to deer with lush browse. Too many people still have the mindset that we’re trying to completely emulate the farmer. The farmer calls this and that a weed and we follow suit labeling many things as “bad”. We are not farming a single crop though and many of those other plants that the farmer curses are very beneficial to us from the standpoint of producing biomass as well as deer browse. We need that grass component in there…..we need that broadleaf component in there…..we need that legume. What we are trying to emulate is a very diverse and very fertile prairie ecosystem.

Got it.

I went and looked at a couple of my Throw & Mow plots yesterday and they look great. By far, this is the best clover stand that I have had on this place in the 7 years that I've had it. Soil is not very good and in the past I've had to deal with erosion on 3 of 6 plots, but I've had no issues this year even with the heavy amounts of rain we've received. I have a couple of plots that I plan to spray next month to eliminate unwanted "grass" and then I plan to lime in May.

What will you use for hay later on if you kill off your grass species? What will produce your biomass?

With gardening season fast approaching I thought I would show how I’m using cereal rye in the garden. Do you remember how folks were making crop circles several years ago by using a 2X4 and rope to flatten down the crops? That’s the same general thing that I’ll do with this bed in another couple weeks. I’ll flatten down the cereal rye all in one direction, nice and neat like. I’ll then come in behind that and spray it to kill everything. Once the mat dies and begins to dry down then I’ll come back and set out my seedlings with a wee/moisture barrier already in place. I'll update this as I go along.

The idea came from this video……..Many may have seen it before but if not then this is a very good place to start with your throw and mow experiments.

Undercover Farmers

Cnc have you ever watched the back to Eden it is along the same lines as throw and mow.

video?http://www.backtoedenfilm.com/

I don't think I've seen that one. I'll check it out though.

270wsm......I got your text. Would you mind of we discussed your fields on the thread so everyone can learn from it and participate? If there's something you want to keep private about your lease/land then I completely understand. No problem.

My field has really jumped over the last week with the warm weather. It’s between knee and waist deep now in many areas and turning a deep bluish green.

Frost advisory here in Bham tonight.

I tried a sort of a throw and mow behind the house. After I bush hogged a small pasture I broadcast some crimson clover in the thatch and figured it would come on up. The results have been poor. I put about 25 pounds of seed on about 2 acres and the clover is very sparse at best.

I think we're ok down here this morning. Its always a roll of the dice this time of year with late frosts. Just about all of my fruit tress except the apples are blooming out right now too.



Hard to say on that one. Maybe super hard surface? Really low pH? Too dry of an area?.....Not sure....Crimson clover is one of the easiest things to establish. I usually find that folks have success with clover this way even if the other things struggle.

CNC- I was traveling to the camp and had a quick question and didn't have time to post on here. I already got the answer.

Yea, hard to figure why the CC didn't work, afterall, it re-seeds itself the next year, without any help.

Is it 'cause he mowed then throwed instead of the other way around?

Cathead, your probably right. I didn't catch that when i read it, although i sprayed a field too early last year and the grass layed down in a mat before i had time to seed it. I was worried the seed wouldn't reach the ground, but i raised the thatch and found a lot of seed on the soil surface. I used a drag anyway, and drug the field in the opposite direction that it was laying and then drug it back down and had the best stand of any plot.