Free nitrogen here

This technique enables the use of small seeded nitrogen fixing legumes. These legumes are slow to establish which means they shouldn’t interfere with the harvest of the main crop. Once harvested they can be used as summer or winter cover green manures with the added bonus of providing a living mulch under the cash crop to suppress weeds and retain moisture. An autumn incorporation will provide organic matter to improve soil tilth and N for a following cash crop. Alternatively they can be grown on after the cash crop is harvested as a winter cover green manure to fix N or even into a following fallow period as an already well established one or two year crop.

Post Harvest Grazing Potential
The legumes in this section can be grazed after harvest. If grazing is intended, a mixture of yellow trefoil, white clover and a limited amount of grass works well. Red clover and sweet clover can also be grazed but there are some limitations with these crops. Red clover can be grazed with fattening stock in the autumn. Care must be taken with breeding animals as red clover contains oestrogen and whilst the effects are short lived it is possible to achieve low conception rates. To avoid this problem exclude red clover from the diet six weeks before and after conception. For specific information please ring for advice.