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

Abstract

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.