Sweet clover as a green manure: description, specifics of planting, compatible crops
Content:
The article presents sweet clover as a green manure: description, pros and cons of sweet clover as a green manure, timing and features of planting, suitable crops.
Sweet clover as a siderat: characteristics
Melilot as a siderat
In the common people, sweet clover found its vocation in alternative medicine, it is used as an infusion to get rid of colds, cystitis, bowel diseases and gout. For a long time, sweet clover was used exclusively as a medicinal herb, but in the eighties, namely in one thousand nine hundred and eighty-first, they began to study the plant for greening its greenery for planting grain representatives.
New opportunities were also discovered, then sweet clover began to be used abundantly to increase the level of soil fertility as a green manure. However, no one has forgotten about its melliferous abilities: beekeepers sow this herbaceous in huge quantities to collect meadow honey, which has a subtle smell of various herbs.
Melilot yellow like green manure: what is good for?
Melilot as a siderat
Legumes can store up to three hundred kilograms of nitrogen per hectare of soil. This is achieved through contact between the root system and the nodule bacteria, which form colonies on the root system.
Ignoring the ability of sweet clover to easily assimilate nitrogen, top dressing contains potassium and phosphorus. Herbaceous is compared to mullein in potency, which has a higher price tag and is more difficult to find in the store to purchase. If summer residents do not have cattle, for example, cows or any other livestock, for example, horses and pigs, the cultivation of vegetables on mullein or other manure will cost a pretty penny.
Melilot "yellow" is a green manure with a strong branched root system, which rotting in the soil, endows with the same number of nutrients as a whole feeding with mineral elements in a complex.
However, there are more advantages of using sweet clover as a green manure:
- The use of greenish top dressing endows the earth with organic elements, which stimulates the appearance of humus, namely, herbaceous residues that serve as food for earth microorganisms. Mineral dressing does not have this effect.
- It is possible to use only the root system, allowing it to calmly rot in the soil, while using the greens for other tasks, for example, placing them in compost, making a solution of green dressing, feeding birds or livestock, digging up on ridges with other herbaceous ones.
- The greenery and the root system are enough to feed the entire territory, since the green mass leaves the same number of nutrients in the ground as the root system.
- Maintains the required amount of moisture in the ground.
- It takes useful components from the depth of the soil to the root system of herbaceous ones.
- It grows on all kinds of lands, for example, podzolic or sandy, forest or clayey.
- Possesses phytosanitary abilities, namely drives away nematodes and wireworms.
For the production of biological mass, it will be enough to purchase the planting material of this plant and sow it in the optimal time period on the territory, wait for the buds to appear, cut the lower part and place it in the soil.
Melilot as a siderat is usually used as a herbaceous plant in unkempt areas with a huge amount of weeds, so that the “yellow” melilot stops its growth, and then it was possible to cultivate vegetable crops on well-groomed ridges.
Melilot yellow siderat: disadvantages
Melilot yellow siderat
- According to opinions about this herbaceous, it is possible to make the impression that, in terms of the number of green dressing, herbaceous is worse than mustard and rye, however, the basic benefit consists of rotten roots and the release of a large amount of phosphorus and nitrogen.
- Herbaceous does not prefer acidic soils, however, when planted for a couple of years in a row in the same area, it evenly alkalizes and normalizes the pH level of the soil.
- This plant is sensitive to the amount of moisture in the soil. In especially dry regions, the effectiveness of the herbaceous plant decreases, but not entirely: the root system, trying to find liquid, sinks to the maximum depth.
- Greens develop weaker.
- Herbaceous can be exposed to diseases of the fungus, for example, is exposed to powdery mildew. This means that after vegetables, on which any defects, diseases and parasites were noticed, the plant is not planted.
Sweet clover as a siderat: when to sow
Disembarkation in the spring season is carried out at the end of the first spring month or in the first week of the second spring month, it all depends on the region. For each hundred square meters, you need from one hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty grams of planting material, which is placed in water for several hours in advance. Seedlings appear after fourteen days. When the herbaceous flower forms buds, the aerial part is pruned.
Then all gardeners carry out everything as they used to:
- the first part places grassy residues in the soil with a shovel or flat cutter.
- the second half does not dig up the soil, thinking primarily about microorganisms that prefer to live in conditions without light, since they die from the direct rays of the sun.
In the first option, you need to wait fourteen days so that the green dressing has time to crumble in the soil and then start sowing seedlings of tomatoes, potatoes, zucchini and berry crops.
In the second option, it is necessary to plant the seedling material on the cut grassy area, the greens are laid between the beds, moistened with bacterial dressing, for example, "Baikal em", straw is placed on top. In order for the green mass to accelerate rot and endow the soil with nutrients, it is moistened in a timely manner.
Note! It is required to use mineral fertilizing in the cultivation of herbaceous green manure, due to the fact that they also use phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium. When sowing a plant on already cultivated soil, there may be no loss of nutrients.
At what time to sow sweet clover
Sowing in the autumn season of herbaceous can be done immediately after receiving the fruits of the crops we are accustomed to, approximately at the end of the summer season or at the beginning of the autumn season. Before sowing planting material, you must:
- remove weeds and tops.
- loosen the top soil layer to a depth of three centimeters.
- water the territory.
- sow planting material or plant in rows.
If the herbaceous plant manages to form buds before the arrival of frost, it is recommended to mow it and not touch it on the ridge.
If the seedlings are small in size, and the cold in the winter season is powerful, the upper parts will die under a layer of snow and in the spring season the soil will be ready for planting the herbaceous crops we are accustomed to. With a late sowing, approximately in the second autumn month, seedlings are formed in the spring season earlier than usual and will begin to grow abundantly greenery.
What plants will benefit from using sweet clover as a green manure
According to summer residents, this plant is suitable for all kinds of herbaceous plants that require an excessive amount of nitrogen.We do not recommend planting herbaceous species before or after legumes such as beans or peas. Herbaceous belongs to a single family and has identical diseases. In order not to contribute to the formation of diseases, it is necessary to use other siderates after the leguminous representatives.
Melilot as a siderat