Clover in barley
sowing
Sep 2020
Schlag Heide 2020/21
Sowing
Winter barley of the "Galileoo" variety was sown in September 2020 in the clover established in spring with spring barley as the previous crop. The Primera DMC seed drill from Amazone, which had been adapted to the test, was used. The plots with clover developed comparable to the conventional variant.
Winter
The wet and cold winter without a persistently closed snow cover led to severe frost damage, since the "pumice soil" that occurs in parts of the Westerwald is frozen high together with the barley and the roots have been torn off. In the clover variant, the clover was able to prevent this phenomenon!
Winter barley without clover
The frozen ground has torn off the roots of the barley.
Winter barley with clover as live mulch
Winter barley is firmly rooted in the soil.
Spring
In the spring, the persistently wet weather meant, that leaf diseases such as Rynchosporium and Ramularia quickly developed in the barley.
To test whether the clover can reduce infestation, application windows were set up with different fungicide strategies
Strategy 1: no fungicide treatment
Strategy 2: customary (leaf and ear treatment)
Strategy 3: ear treatment only
Another focus of the investigations in barley was in the area of water balance. In addition to the weekly measurements of the soil moisture with the installed measuring sleeves, extensive infiltration measurements were also carried out. The water absorption capacity (infiltration rate) of the soil became sadly explosive due to the flood events on the Ahr and in other regions of Germany.
Harvest
The harvest took place on July 20th with precision threshing and, regardless of the clover, turned out to be rather mixed throughout the farm. The variant only ear treatment without clover achieved the highest average yield. A significant difference between living mulch and the usual practice without clover could only be determined in this variant. The variants with clover achieved higher starch levels, a higher thousand grain weight and lower protein levels. The detailed test results are available on request.
