Winter Clovers in Central Florida

 E. M. HODGES, D. W. JONES and W. G. KIRK

 Forage crops that endure frost and grow during cool winter
weather can fill a valuable place in the pasture needs of central
Florida. Certain clover varieties meet these requirements.
 These clovers furnish a small but important part of the total
winter forage. Clover herbage may have a protein content of
20 percent or more on a dry basis, thus supplying much-needed
feeding quality at a critical period of the year. Some of the ni-
trogen fixed by the clover remains in the soil to benefit the asso-
ciated grasses for three to five months after the legume crop
has completed growth, thus influencing pasture over a long sea-
son. These factors, which result in high nutritive quality and
increased acre production (Table 1), are important to produc-
ers of both beef and dairy cattle.
 It was demonstrated in the late 1930's that-with adequate
soil treatment-adapted strains of clover could be grown through-
out most of Florida (1)1. Small areas of winter clover were es-
tablished successfully in many counties, but most of the early
plantings died out after a year or two for lack of refertilization
or because of overgrazing and dry weather.

 GRAZING TRIALS
 Effect of Clover on Beef Production.-Several clover varieties
planted in experimental plots at the Range Cattle Station in No-
vember 1941 made excellent growth in the first season but failed
in succeeding years because of drouth, although soil treatment
and seeding were adequate.
 Carpet grass and mixed winter clovers were planted at the
Range Cattle Station on two pasture of five acres each in 1942.
Carpet grass was planted with a cultipacker at 10 pounds per acre
over the entire area in spring and summer. The clover was seed-
ed in November on top of the sod at the rate of three pounds Lou-
isiana White, five pounds Black Medic and seven pounds Hubam
per acre. These three varieties were planted each fall through
1945, after which no reseeding was done.
 The soil was typical flatwoods, Immokalee fine sand, having
a shallow dark surface layer and an organic hardpan at the 30-


Italic figures in parentheses refer to Literature Cited.