Crimson Clover

We recommend Crimson Clover, known as the clover to make your hay. It is a soft-seeded, erect annual suited to 500mm+ rainfall and performs best on free-draining heavier soils and gravelly loams. It gives excellent mid to late spring production for hay, silage or grazing.

Our catalogue recommends about 10 kg/ha of Crimson Clover as a monoculture and 2 to 5 kg/ha in mixes, while our 2026 guide gives a 3 to 10 kg/ha range, so check with us. Inoculate with Group C inoculant before sowing.

Crimson Clover is ideal for vineyards and orchards. Its showy crimson flowers attract bees and beneficial insects, and its deep roots help soil structure. It suits 500mm+ rainfall and is often used in cover crop mixes. Our Interow Mix is also worth a look for between-row planting.

Crimson Clover is a popular choice for cover crop and regenerative mixes because it is deep rooted and produces plenty of seed. It adds high quality forage in late spring and fixes nitrogen. We include options like our Cover Crop Plus Winter mix, or you can add Crimson to a custom blend.

A soft-seeded clover like our Crimson Clover is susceptible to germinating after a false break and then dying if follow-up rain doesn't come. To reduce the risk, sow once the season has properly broken. For false-break-prone areas, hard-seeded options such as Hykon Rose or Bartolo Bladder Clover are more reliable.

Crimson Clover is best suited to rotational grazing that allows recovery time between grazings. It is highly palatable and ideal for late winter and early spring grazing. It then gives excellent spring and early summer production, so you can shut it up for hay or silage.

Adding Crimson Clover lifts the clover to grass ratio, improving forage quality and hay. It has an upright habit and high quality leaf and stem, so it cuts well with ryegrass. It flowers around 120 days in Perth and suits 500mm+ rainfall areas.

Crimson Clover tolerates low pH soils and will perform in most soils where sub clover grows, suiting sands to heavier soils. Our catalogue gives a minimum of pH 4.5 to 5. It needs 500mm+ rainfall, so it suits the Hills and higher rainfall parts of the South West.

Crimson Clover is a soft-seeded annual, so it doesn't build a large hard-seed bank like sub or rose clovers. It does produce plenty of seed, but regeneration is less reliable, especially after false breaks. Many growers treat it as a forage, hay or cover crop and resow when needed.

Both are soft-seeded annual hay clovers. Crimson Clover suits 500mm+ rainfall, tolerates acid soils and does well on gravelly loams, flowering around 120 days. Our Berseem Clover prefers neutral, fertile medium to heavy soils with 550mm+, tolerates waterlogging and gives multiple cuts, flowering around 144 days.