Sweet clover

Is there anything sweet clover is good for? I cut a 3.3 acre lot that must have been 1/2 clover. Was brush hogged earlier in the year so it's not too thick & stemmy, but we've never had a want or need for it in our fields. what i'm going after is the grass to sell as horse hay, but we have to cut it all.

I think we're gonna try to bale just the grass to keep it separate, then do the sweet clover & other junky stuff after.

Donovan from Wisconsin

Don, I bale it all together the horses and the horse people we have here love it. Jim

Horses and goats love it but it can be a bit high in protein so a guy feeding it has to watch or it can cause problems. Been trying to get some growing for a long time now in my pasture

My grand dad always had a nice patch that he baled. Also, a beekeeper was REAL fond of it and paid his squatters fee with honey-THAT was the best honey around!

I agree with WIJIM. But cut, rake, and bale it so it is mixed as much as you can within a bale.

Don, anyone over your way combining beans? I had some of mine taken off tonight 57.5bu acre and 13% moisture.
Tomorrow I have to haul the beans to Readfield, spread manure, work land, rake hay, bale hay, plant wheat, and combine beans.

I sow a bit of it on purpose in my horse pastures. Which I cut as hay on rotation.
Horses seem to like the clover better as hay than fresh.
As a legume it should add nitrogen to the soil and promote grass growth. or Did I learn that wrong?

Nothing from what I've seen driving between home in Hilbert to Chilton, work in Menasha, and the farm in Kaukauna. A co-worker lives in Oshkosh along 41 and said they'd be finished with their beans tomorrow, and they'll have all their winter wheat in to boot.

I may be chopping bean straw for a gent out towards freedom, but he hasn't returned my call yet from earlier today. I custom baled some small squares for him about a month ago and we had talked about it. USDA rates guide figures around $100/ hr to custom chop, but with our older tractor and chopper, I'm thinking $60/hr is more reasonable. I can still make a buck and not be bending him over so hard. Just want to make sure it'll fit in with us chopping our corn in another 2 weeks or so.

As far as the sweet clover, I'll probably give my one gal a call and see if she wants any or not. She wants 500 bales, and last Saturday I delivered 213, so I've still got 287 to go. And it's gotta go to Wittenburg. I'm selling it for $4/bale, plus $.75 delivery because of the distance involved. If I can sell her some of this, I can atleast save myself handling it 2 times going from the wagon to the mow, and then the mow to the wagon.

Some will only be good for cover hay, as one side had lots of small trees and such starting to grow. I think the brush hog actually makes it grow more vigorously as it was very thick in spots. The haybine cut right through the stuff but I surely can't sell that crap as horse hay.

Donovan from Wisconsin

This is a comercial lot in the middle of a village, so the soil condition doesn't matter to the owner. He's just been trying to sell it for a while for someone to plant a building on it.

Donovan from Wisconsin

My only experience with that.....1973, second year after starting farming from scratch, rented some hay ground with a couple acres of it. Most miserable crap- looks nice when cut, takes forever to dry, and turns into brown crap a cow won"t eat. Fine in a pasture....it should stay there! But harvesting/baling? I"ll stick to alfalfa.

You must be talking about Jensen, good friends of ours. They started beans earlier this week.

You nailed it. I work with Tim.

Small world, aint it?

The hay's probably gonna get washed tonight, but after that it should be good until it's ready to bale. Today I gotta start getting the chopper ready for corn. I won't switch the heads yet, but I'm going to drop 1/3 of the knives so I'll need to respace them all.

Donovan from Wisconsin