permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflondon@mindspring.com>]

On Mon, 9 Oct 2000 13:48:42 -0400 (EDT), "Lawrence F. London, Jr."
<london@metalab.unc.edu> wrote:

>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2000 17:40:14 -0400 (EDT)
>From: Randy <donahuer@ols.net>
>Subject: Rose Clover Performance

>This will hopefully allow the cattle to be pulled out of each paddock just
>as the length of forage becomes ideal for pasturing poultry. The broadleaf
>clovers will be preferred by the hens. Another of advantage of these
>mixtures underneath a low density orchard is that the clovers can regenerate
>flowers during a timed rest period, providing an alternative source of bee
>forage for the landowners hives. A surplus of honey generated by the clovers
>could offset the cost of keeping hives to pollinate the owner's fruit trees.
>An additional season long source of honey is needed to compensate for the
>short early period that most fruit trees bloom.

Would the chicken manure residue within the clover present any disease
pathogen problem for honey production? If there was little/no rainfall
between the removal of poultry from the pasture and the scheduled
pollen gathering by the bees (given that there may be enough moisture
to make the clover flower but not enough to make the manure compost
adequately to be relatively disease-free? This could be a problem in
NC with unpredictable weather and variations in soil
type/fertility/tilth/permeability.

One solution would be to grow tall sweet white and yellow clover; the
bees use this plant's flowers (as do many other pollinators) and it is
not too invasive and could coexist with planting of many other
perennial forage crops, including many annuals (rye grain).

Lawrence


Lawrence F. London, Jr. 
lflondon@mindspring.com    
london@metalab.unc.edu
http://www.ibiblio.org/london