Hairy Vetch vs Crimson Clover for Nitrogen Fixation

0:03 [Music]

0:10 On that note we did have a question: if you planted hairy vetch and crimson clover at the same time.

0:16 Which one would provide the fastest amount of nitrogen in the spring as far as like when they're terminating? It depends on time and termination. Crimson.

0:27 Where crimson is adapted it will start fixing nitrogen earlier in the spring, start growing earlier in the spring than the bench.

0:38 But it also finishes quicker and vetch has a higher capacity to fix nitrogen but goes later to do that. So I like the combination of the two. I mean it's one of the situations where

0:51 Diversity is a good thing. Purple and red together, you know, kind of a beautiful marriage sometimes.

1:03 Like K-State in Nebraska. Dale, it can work, it can work.

1:09 Yeah, that's assuming that you're far enough south where crips and clover will reliably over winter. Yes.

1:16 I think once you get north of I-70 it's hit-and-miss. You know up here where we're at in southern Nebraska, I can say that I probably really only.

1:38 Yeah, now along I-70 it's more like probably three years out of five and some of the newer varieties of crimson clover like.

1:47 Kentucky pride that we've been carrying is supposed to be quite a bit more winter hardy, maybe 10 degrees better.

1:57 Temperature times than the dixie that is the main crimson clover variety out on.

2:06 Yeah we're trying to switch over to all.

2:08 Kentucky pride, but there's just not enough of it out of the market right now. So we're slowly transitioning over to the better types as production comes up on it.