Lucerne and clovers, step by step
Interactive lesson: choose the species for your soil, prepare the field, sow and roll, cut at the right time, dry without losing the leaf and graze without bloat.
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The whole lesson as text
1. Which species for your soil
Lucerne and clovers are legumes: nodules on their roots fix nitrogen from the air.
- Lucerne on deep soil — Lucerne wants deep, free-draining soil with pH 6.5–7.5. It lasts 4–6 years and gives 3–5 cuts. In the UK it does best in the drier south and east.
- Red clover for damper ground — On slightly acid, damper or shallower soil red clover is safer. It lasts 2–3 years and is the usual choice in the wetter west and in Ireland.
- Sainfoin and trefoil on chalk — On dry chalk downland in southern England sainfoin is an old, proven forage; on thin, poor soil, bird's-foot trefoil.
- A mix with grasses — White clover mixed with grasses gives protein on pasture. A legume with 20–30 % grass (cocksfoot, meadow fescue, timothy) dries more easily and causes bloat less often.
Why: So they need no nitrogen fertiliser, and their hay has 15–20 % protein. But each species wants its own soil. The wrong species in the wrong field dies out within a year or two.
- The figures in the table are rough and depend on soil, rainfall and variety.
- Lucerne shouldn't be the only feed for adult bucks, wethers and rams: too much calcium and protein.
2. Soil and preparation
Lucerne can't stand acid soil or standing water.
- Soil test a year ahead — Take a soil sample a year before sowing. Below pH 6.2 lucerne does poorly.
- Lime in autumn — Work lime into the soil in the autumn before sowing, according to the test.
- Check the drainage — If water stands for more than a day or two after rain, don't sow lucerne. Red clover or grass is better there.
- A fine, firm seedbed — Cultivate deep in autumn, fine and shallow in spring. Your boot shouldn't sink more than 1–2 cm, and the field must be clean of couch grass, docks and bindweed.
Why: On them it dies out in 1–2 years, whatever the seed. So the work starts a year before sowing, with a soil test and lime.
- No nitrogen needed. Phosphate and potash according to the soil test.
- Rotted manure goes on the previous crop, not just before sowing lucerne, because it encourages weeds.
3. Sowing · Locked
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4. The first year · Locked
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5. Cutting and drying · Locked
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6. Grazing without bloat · Locked
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