Sudex/Crimson Cover Crop

[dominiquer60]

a discussion move from another thread

[dominiquer60]

February 12, 2016 at 4:18 pm

ethalernull
Participant

hey erika,

can you tell me a bit more about your sudex/crimson clover experience. looking into that this year seems like a really nice aggressive long-term summer cover. are you seeding at the same time? what time of year? do you need to be careful of sudex not getting to big/shady for crimson to pull through after mow-down?

thanks,
evan

[dominiquer60]

I have used the crimson/sudex a few times now. I seed them together at the same time, if you are heavy with the sudex, the crimson struggles to thrive, rabbits add to that struggle. Not enough sudex, you produce less biomass. With enough seed you can’t loose because the ground is covered, but if you want it biomass heavy, or Nitrogen heavy, you need to be more particular about seeding rates. Sudex mows well with a sickle bar and frost kills with ease. If left to frost, it knocks down over night a couple of days after the first hard frost. I have been seeding it in July without needing to mow it at all. Last year we did a few acres for silage bales in front of a spelt seeding. We planted that later than we should have, mid June, but still managed to get 2 cuttings off before we turned it down.

A couple years ago I also had a crimson/sudex/tillage radish mix that. It resulted in a good amount of biomass and the soil tilth was greatly improved, unfortunately that year the rabbits ate all the crimson clover under the canopy of radish and sudex.

It is fairly ease to manage if frost killed, I don’t have any experience trying to kill it before frost.

I hope that helps.
Erika

[ethalernull]

thanks that’s super helpful…

as far as seeding, can you tell me more specifically any do’s or dont’s for seed incorporation? when seeding a grass/legume cover i usually lightly disc in the oats or rye and then broadcast clover over the top…would sudex benefit from this slightly deeper placement?

does sudex mow kill at any stage?

thanks again!

[dominiquer60]

To seed I hand spin both out at the same time and cultimulch lightly. I try to time it with a rain. It seems to come in just fine. I think that your method would be fine too. I will separate oats and red clover, the size difference is greater, using the cultimulcher for the oats and only cultipacking the clover.

It is terribly tough to kill being so drought tolerant. I am going to seed a 1/4 acre this May and mow it a couple times, then lightly disc it and plant some crimson and tillage radish in July. I don’t think I am going to kill it and might be lucky if the discs just stir up a little soil. The plow and frost are the easiest ways to kill it that I know of.

[dominiquer60]

This is my reading for tonight, and Iowa study on Short Duration Cover Crops for Vegetable Production Systems. I have no idea what the depth of it is, and I never thought of Iowa as a vegetable state, but the title certainly has my attention.

http://store.extension.iastate.edu/Product/Short-Duration-Cover-Crops-for-Vegetable-Production-Systems.

Erika

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