Last edited on February 03, 2024. View history
Clover
Clover
How to sow clover: Direct seed using a broadcast method
Sun requirement for clover: Plant in Full Sun
Clover, or Trefoil, is a genus of 300 plants in the legume, or Fabaceae family. Clovers are small annual, biennial, or short-lived perennial herbaceous plants. Leaves are usually trifoliate and rarely quatrefoiled. Flowers are dense spikes of small purple, red, yellow, or white flowers. Plants can be upright or low-growing. Clover is frequently grown as animal feed or a cover crop. It is a popular cover crop because it fixes nitrogen, breaks up hard soil with its deep tap root, provides green manure, and prevents soil erosion. Common cover crop species include Red Clover, Crimson Clover, Sweet Clover, and White Clover. More growing information is available in individual species entries.
- 0
- plantings
- 0
- harvests
- 0
- seed packets
Clover facts
Lifespan
Crop cycle
Max altitude
Optimal light
What are growing degree days?
A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.
Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.
For clover, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 4°C and a shortest growing cycle of 90 days at its best temperature, about 1260 growing degree days to a first harvest.
Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your clover will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.
Plant clovers with
squash
Photos
Photos
Clover crops
What people are saying about clovers
Nobody has posted about clovers yet.
Sign in or sign up to post your tips and experiences growing clovers.
Who's planted clovers
Nobody has planted this crop yet.
Sign in or sign up to track your clover plantings.Clover harvests
Nobody has harvested this crop yet.
Sign in or sign up to track your clover harvests.Find clover seeds
There are no seeds available to trade on Growstuff right now.
- Purchase seeds via Ebay
- Sign in or sign up to list your seeds to trade.
Time to harvest
If sown now, expect a first harvest in about 90 to 240 days.
From the growing cycle in the FAO EcoCrop database, which is the same wherever it is grown.
Ecological requirements
Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Trifolium repens L.
| Family / Taxonomy | Magnoliopsida Rosidae Fabales Leguminosae |
|---|---|
| Killing temperature | growth: 0 °C, rest: -2 °C |
| Life form | herb |
| Life span | perennial |
| Habit | prostrate/procumbent/semi-erect |
| Optimal soil depth | shallow (20-50 cm) |
| Optimal soil texture | heavy, medium |
| Optimal soil fertility | high |
| Optimal soil drainage | well (dry spells) |
| Optimal soil salinity | low (<4 dS/m) |
| Photoperiod | long day (>14 hours) |
Learn more about clovers
Resources outside Growstuff.
