Project Update (May 2020) - Cefngwilgy Fawr: Improving home grown feed value from clovers

On May 6th, 2020, two fields were reseeded; one to a white clover mix and the other to a red clover mix.  

Field 1 (6 acres)

For the white clover mix, varied clover rates are being trialled on different segments of the field, i.e. 0 clover, 1kg/acre, 2kg/acre – using the base mix of Oliver Seeds ‘century mix’.

Field 2 (5 acres)

For the red clover mix, the Oliver Seed’s ‘fortress mix’ has been used; which has 1kg/acre of white clover, plus 3kg/acre of red clover.

A 1 acre section of each of these fields have been sown with a grass mix that has no clover, used as a control (rather than use a whole control field). 

Next steps;

• First light graze hopefully in mid to late June.
• Grass cages on in July to monitor and record grass growth rates and composition.
• Monitor animal performance (i.e. monitor lamb growth rates that will be grazing the reseeded fields).
• Clover counts will be carried out next spring (to see what survives the winter).

This pictures below show the reseeding work being carried out on the trial fields;