Products

Lotus corniculatus L.

A medium-late, winter hardy birdsfoot trefoil used for pasture or reclamation purposes

  • Provides excellent livestock forage
  • Good yields
  • Very good seedling vigour
  • Excellent for erosion control on strip mines and landfills
  • Good winter hardiness
  • Adapted to areas with higher moisture
  • High flood tolerance
  • Likes full sun
  • Moderately tolerates drought
  • Has anthelmintic effect for ruminants
  • Low plants
  • Stem – semi-erect, abundantly leafy
  • The weight of the leaves is 50-52 % of the weight of the whole plant
  • Resistant to cold and medium frosts
  • Fairly drought tolerant
  • Blooms in summer, with yellow flowers (the flowers contain bitter substances – hydrocyanic acid, which somewhat deteriorates the fodder value of birdsfoot trefoil, so the green mass for feeding cattle must be cut before flowering)
  • Blooms when the day length is 16-18 hours
  • One inflorescence develops 5-6 pods, each containing 10-15 seeds
  • Seeds ripen 25-30 days after pollination
  • The seeds are scattered when pods burst
  • 1000 seed weight – 1.2-1.5 g
  • The root system is not as deep as of alfalfa, and is more branched in shallower (30-60-120 cm deep) soil layers
  • Mature plants have many highly branched stems growing from one crown
  • Roots can produce new shoots
  • Cut approximately at 5-10 cm high; mowing below would remove too many axillary buds needed for regrowth
  • Birdsfoot trefoil is light-loving plant, so when sowed with fast-growing grasses, is  overshadowed and do not match well.
  • Winters well, tolerates grazing and trampling, so it is well suited for establishing areas and pastures on hills, drier and more acidic soils
  • Birdsfoot trefoil is undemanding on soils, they grow best in sandy and light clay soils with a pH of 4.5-7.0 (optimal pH – 6.2-6.5)
  • Can grow and give yield in one place for many years
  • During the first year of growth, birdsfoot trefoil cannot be grazed. If, during the wet growing season, the birdsfoot trefoil grows very fast, it can be cut for fodder in the first days of September
  • In the second and subsequent years of growth birdsfoot trefoil is cut at the beginning of flowering, because then a sufficiently large yield is obtained, the forage is very good, and the birdsfoot trefoil recovers well
  • When birdsfoot trefoil is grown with other plants, mowing time is determined by the dominant perennial grasses in the mixture
  • The grasses grown with the birdsfoot trefoil should be slower growing (as timothy and Kentucky blue-grass is)
  • Requires low maintenance
  • Nectareous plant, very popular with beekeepers
  • Used for nitrogen fixation, and as an erosion control method
  • The seeds are suitable for bird food

The varietal parameters may differ from those indicated here when the testing circumstances differ from quondam


Recommended sowing rate: 12 kg/ha

Recommended sowing rate when growing for green manure: 14 kg/ha