Over-seeding clover with a short maturity sorghum.

[Freeborn]

I have two acres in a mix of white clovers that I would like to start a cycle of over-seeding the clover in Mid-July (after Poults get bigger) with short maturity sorghum so I have a winter food supply for pheasants.

I have not tried this but I understand the steps are fairly simple. They Include:

Broadcast seed over the area you are planting.
Mow clover to provide a thatch layer for seed
Spray a dose of GLY (1/2 quart per acre) to setback the clover but not kill it.
Cultipack the seed.
Wait to see some sorghum growth (couple weeks) and then fertilize.
By fall the sorghum has hopefully matured and the clover has rebounded.

In the spring, you frost seed additional clover if you have any bare spots. Again in July you start the process over again.

The idea here is to get both a spring food-plot (insects for chicks) and a winter food-plot. You also use up allot of the nitrogen fixed by the clover.

Has anybody tried this? Any advice on how to make this work? Can you recommend a short maturity sorghum?

This clover sits next to two acres of sorghum and two acres of soybeans.

Thanks for the help.

 

[1GB]

I've read about using gly on clover to kill surrounding plants, but not entirely kill the clover. I've done it by accident before where I was spot spraying grasses in a clover plot. The application rate and timing relative to rain is rather critical. If drought follows spraying, the clover is usually cooked.

I think the overall idea you're proposing is interesting. I hope you give it a shot and can report back on your experiences!

I'm planning to do something similar, but on a slightly more drawn out timeline. My intentions are to let last years sorghum go fallow this year and frost seed it with clover. I haven't decided on an exact type/mix/rate yet, but I'd simply like to increase diversity for bugs and earn some N credits for the following year if possible. Then the next year I'll disc it under and do another round of sorghum. I've got a few areas, so I'll alternate fallow and sorghum so that every year I have a mixture of both.

 

[Freeborn]

I plan on trying this and will provide a report back after the season. I got the idea from the QDMA site where members have planted other fall attactants for deer but not Sorghum.

My experience with clover is that it is not all that easy to kill. You need to nuke it pretty well to make certain its dead. I see the gly dosage as being very critical and I might back off a little on the GLY to 1/3 of a quart per acre.

I figure once the sorghum gets taller than the clover it should be fine. How long does it take soghum to get a foot tall?

I plan on going with a fairly light seeding rate on the sorghum and am looking at PF Early Longtail Milo or a Wild Game Sorghum from a seed house.

FB