Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Planting Oats and Red Clover

I'm planting oats and red clover on 90 acres. This land is going into certified organic production, with the first cash crop, corn, harvested in the fall of 2021. The oats are a place holder, crowding out any early flushes of weeds, which gives the red clover a chance to get established. The clover will be mowed, to kill any weeds that make it through the oats, at least once this summer. The clover will return next year, fixing additional nitrogen from the atmosphere that is needed for a healthy corn crop.

The John Deere model 750 no-till grain drill holds about 1500 lbs of oat seeds in the main hopper and roughly 120 lbs of clover seed in the small seed box. I'm putting about 57 lbs of oats and 10 lbs of clover on each acre.



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