fixerupper
Well-known Member
Is sweet clover an annual or perennial? The stuff has been showing up in ditches and grassy areas here in Northwest Iowa and I'm in full battle with it this summer. I haven't seen sweet clover in any amounts for all of fifty years so I don't have much experience with the stuff but it is making a grand showing now for some reason. I have a couple of brome grass waterways I bale and the one had some tall sweet clover in it. I mowed it down with the hay but when I raked it the stuff tangled in the rake and just generally made a mess. I ended up leaving most of it lay and coming back with a pitch fork and pitching it aside to be burned. This spring I remember seeing what looked like a few scattered alfalfa plants coming up in the waterways and I didn't pay much attention to it, not knowing it actually was sweet clover. The hay has been off for three weeks and I've been monitoring the sweet clover that was cut off and it is not coming back, but instead, new fresh plants are coming up elsewhere. This leads me to believe it spreads by seed? I sprayed the waterways with 2-4D a week ago and the new sweet clover growth is dying, but it looks like I'm going to have to have the 2-4D ready in the spring when it starts coming up so I can nail it early.