# Balansa Clover



## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Interesting....

Regards, Mike

http://hayandforage.com/other-forages/high-biomass-balansa-clover-controls-weeds


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## Fossil02818 (May 31, 2010)

Sounds interesting as another pasture component option. I doubt that we could take advantage of it as a hay legume. Probably take a couple more days to dry than the rest of the cutting. Too bad since the nutritional profile is even better than our alfalfa yield.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

The first thing that crossed my mind is "what about bloat?"

Regards, Mike


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## Waldo (Apr 29, 2016)

Vol we grow balansa clover here it is a medic and no bloat problems.makes top horse hay,with no estrogen problem for pregnant mares. That,s the good part,it,s a real b...... to make you can cut it with a disc bine ,but with roller conditioner,s it wraps around the roller had to use a box knife to cut it out.It has a hollow stem so when it goes through the conditioner,it pops,and flail conditioner not much better .the seed has a large hard seed content. This year it's come up in a old Lucerne paddock I had in rye grass.a cover crop like oats is good to grow it with as it will climb to the top,just throw the seed out and it,ll grow. In victoria the consider it a weed in Cera crops but you always have the choice to hay it .so as the temperature goes up it fold,s like clover quickly and it maker the softest hay


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## Coondle (Aug 28, 2013)

Have grown balansa but it only persists in my wettest of years otherwise too dry for Paradana a mid season variety. Perhaps I should try a short season variety.

The question of 'bloat' was raised. The answer is calttle can suffer from bloat, see factsheet linked below.

In a wet year it grows unbelievably and as Waldo says it will grow up an oat crop stalks.

In a wet year I had it 4 feet high in an oat crop, it was awesome. My brother brought a car load of his friends to show them.

One asked him;

"Why didn't you tell us about it before?"
My brother answered:
"You would not have believed me, so I told no-one".

They agreed.

Made fantastic hay, very nutritious with one customer feeding nothing else to his thoroughbred brood mares.

Late in the year it was a disaster because mice got into it and destroyed every bale. They were like porpoises literally swimming through it. Not a mouse in the other non-balasa hay in the same shed.

Cutting pure stands of the balansa was an issue. At the time I had a Hesston PT10 and it could handle the dense mat of clover. The mat was pulled back into the rollers before being cut by the knife. Like a lodged crop of oats. However at the time I also had an IH 175 winegrower wit a draper front feeding into a pair of rollers. The draper front could get under the mat and the knife cut it before travelling on the belts to the rollers.

Here is a link to a fact sheet on Balansa Clover:

keys.lucidcentral.org/keys/v3/pastures/Html/*Balansa*_*clover*.htm

Here is a link to a detailed report by the West Australian Department of Agriculture;

https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/pasture-species/*balansa*-*clover*

In recent years our Dept Agriculture has introduced a number of grasses from countries bordering the Mediterranean. Our southern agricultural area has a mediterranean climate. Another excting variety is biserulla from Morocco whereas balloons clover is from Turkey.

It can be useful for weed control.

Here is a link:

https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/pasture-establishment/*biserrula*

This year I have a magnificent stand of casbah biserrula looking like that in the photo in the article. I am very pleased, it has been grazed with up to 4 sheep to the acre but for the last couple of months with only 0.75 sheep to the acre. It was hard to get 3/4 of a sheep  and it is in a tangled mass so it will be interesting to see how my mower conditioner fares when I cut it.

I plan to cut and bale it after seed set and feed it out in other paddocks to get it spread over summer.


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## CowboyRam (Dec 13, 2015)

I have been reading where crops like clover can reduce soil compaction. We have an area in our field where the soil is so tight that it will not allow water to get down to our drain pipe. My question is this, could this clover reduce our compaction so the soil could drain?


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Coondle, I can't open not one of those links, well, I could open the first one but was sure of the scientific name of the clover and it didn't link to it......
I tried turning my iPad upside down but the auto-rotate gave me issues.....turned it off and still no worky  
But back to the sheep.....just how did you get that 3/4 of a sheep


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

CowboyRam said:


> I have been reading where crops like clover can reduce soil compaction. We have an area in our field where the soil is so tight that it will not allow water to get down to our drain pipe. My question is this, could this clover reduce our compaction so the soil could drain?


Alfalfa, or turnips or other Brassicas.

Regards, Mike


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## Waldo (Apr 29, 2016)

Just drove through the balansa, big mistake.wrap around the tail shafted and bringing the ute to halt.so while I was under the ute cutting the clover out I thought,gee this is soft ,and must replace the front uni joint.After much thought I think the best way to cut this will be with a hay slasher or disc mower. Last time I did hay out of balansa it whent 3 ton to the acre, and this is shaping up to that.the only problem the weather is suppose to be wet till end of December, this is shaping up to the wettest year on record. And we have had 4 floods already.something to look forward to waldo


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## Coondle (Aug 28, 2013)

Waldo, balansa sure can produce when it is wet. Over my way we have had more winter rain than have had for many years. We are just about average for the year at just at 510mm (20") since January. Average annual is 560mm (22"), but after years of well below average there i little subsoil moisture so most has soaked in with lower than average run off. Saw your floods on TV, not pretty and loss of life makes it worse.

With my better rainfall year my casbah biserulla has taken off. I had balansa on my house block but sold it last December. It was lower in the landscape and it would be interesting to see how much balansa persisted. The years gone by were too dry (growing season too short) and very few plants persisted.


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## CowboyRam (Dec 13, 2015)

I think I read somewhere that clover clogs up in the conditioner when cutting. Is that true?


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## Waldo (Apr 29, 2016)

Cowboy ram. Block is an under state mentioned. I have spent a few hours at a time with one block. Never had problems cutting it.but what coondle said it will pull 6 or feet of material in front of the real on a 499 new holland the it would block the reel and the roller. 5 hours to cut 6 acres,if it wasn't for the quality and volume of hay I would have left it.when I rake it I only turn one row.I left the accumulator of the baler because didn't have enough room to operate it 6 acres 900 bales.took forever to make like 10 days and every where I had a block where the hay didn't go through the conditioner there was whet lumps.Best part is it made magnificent hay.I have 40 acres of self sown balansa you can bear walk through.but as I said before cut it with a slasher or disc mower then run a conditioner, then rake ,even so look at 7 to 8 days before baling


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## Waldo (Apr 29, 2016)

Coondle which part of the west are you in,back in the 2003 drought we shipped a lot of oaten hay from Beverly and Williams ,it's certainly saved the day here.It certainly wet on the east coast where I am on the lachland river,and this is flood number 4 and it looks like being wet to chrismass.making hay will be very interesting.In 2012 had 5 cuts of Lucerne and got 5 wet,plus all the oaten hay how are the export guys going there.if the rain doesn't stop here and Victoria good hay will be in short supply waldo


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## Coondle (Aug 28, 2013)

About 100 k (60m) north of Beverley and 11 k (7m) north of Toodyay. Export hay looks good but such a fickle trade. I never even entertained a so-called "contract" because their contracts are like grass seeds, They only work one way.

Eighteen years ago someone I know took a contract on the proviso the hay was collected by them at cutting and stored. Came the time and he cut and had a contractor bale for $66,000. Called the company and:

"Sorry we do not have any storage so we will not collect until shipping".

He had no storage and was worried sick that a summer thunderstorm would ruin it all. He could not store it. Because it was outside ,the company downgraded it and lowered the price. He has not planted another seed for export since.

They will look for every excuse to downgrade and cry like babies when hay is in short supply. I just like selling a few bundles at a time usually to the end user.

I have set up my deliveries with a Mitsubishi diesel truck with 6 metre (20 foot) flat steel tray ( no combing rail) with a 5 metre (16 foot 6 inch ) 4.5 tonne (10,000 lbs) tandem trailer with a set of aluminium ramps. Loaded with hay I can do some 356 bales, i.e. 17 packs or do 210 bales i.e. 10 packs and take my front end loader on the trailer to unload at destination.

The trailer is old school and is GTM not ATM so I can have 4500 kg on the wheels and up to 1300 kg on the pintle hook. All up I top out at 16000 kg (35,200lbs) and just over 15.5 metres in length (51 feet). Not bad for a little Japanese truck. The whole setup cost about AUD $35K including the loader.


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## Waldo (Apr 29, 2016)

Coondle the times has come said the warrush. Start cutting balansa on Monday. The next door going to put his new disconnect into it .I plan to go away for the day .I don't, think I can handle the Argro  when he blocks the rollers up.but I will leave a Standley knife it him and seed the idea of opening the rollers up,and put a block in them either end .next door a ex veggie farmer,and knows all you ever want to know about making hat's, s better then me I, very had 50 and still learning 'should be a interesting hay season.i wouldn't mind if he listen to one of the barstool experts, but not the whole 20 of them


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