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Winter survival and spring growth of white clover cultivars at an upland site in northern England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2009

R. Haycock  and
J. H. Ollerenshaw
R. Haycock
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Biology, The University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU
J. H. Ollerenshaw
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Biology, The University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU
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Extract

One of the major limitations of white clover in Britain is the delay in commencement of spring growth compared with companion grasses (Williams, 1970) and the delay is further increased. by the resulting competitive disadvantage (Davies & Young, 1967; Spedding & Diekmahns, 1972). Thus there is a need to increase growth of white clover at low temperatures particularly in the uplands where the season is short (Ollerenshaw & Baker, 1981). However, the work of Cooper (1964) suggests that increased spring growth rate will be detrimental to survival. Small-leaved cultivars, e.g. S.184, have been favoured for upland use because they are well able to survive. This paper presents a study of the survival and early spring growth of 13 commercial varieties of white clover. Early spring growth was described by the increase in numbers of leaves per growing point and lamina length. The density of growing points was not recorded as previous field studies (Haycock, 1980, 1981; Davies & Evans, 1982) showed this variable to be of minor importance in spring yield increase.

Type
Short Note
Information
The Journal of Agricultural Science , Volume 98 , Issue 2 , April 1982 , pp. 471 - 473
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

REFERENCES

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