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White Clover Response to a Water-Application Gradient

USDA-ARS,, Forage Research Unit, P.O. Box 5367, Mississippi State, MS 39762

^* Corresponding author (geb1{at}ra.msstate.edu).

Periods of drought, common during the summer and fall in the southeastern USA, can be detrimental to growth of the shallowrooted, temperate forage legume, white clover (Trifolium repens L.). Our objective was to determine the growth response (lateral spread, morphology) of white clover to a water-application gradient during the summer and fall on a Marietta fine sandy loam (fine-loamy, siliceous, thermic Fluvaquentic Eutrochrept). From May to October, a linesource irrigation system produced regimes of high, medium, low, and zero water-application across parallel 1.0-m rows of three cultivars and three germplasms transplanted (10 plants row^–1) into a common bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers, var. dactylon) sod the previous fall. Plots were continuously-stocked (5-cm stubble) with cattle (Bos taurus L.). Each month, differences in lateral plant spread among entries were similar regardless of water-application regime. Within each regime, spread declined sharply after June and remained near a minimum (<0.20 m² row^–1) from August until October. Yield and morphology differences among entries in July were similar in each of the water-application regimes as well. By October, however, there were differences in herbage yield, stolon length, and number of stolon apices among entries at the high water-application regime, but not at the medium, low, and zero regimes. The results suggest that either there is no difference in drought tolerance among these cultivars and germplasms, or that white clover drought tolerance does not impact growth in the presence of stresses such as grazing and associated grasses.

Received for publication June 11, 1997.

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