The effect of growing clover cultivars in association with barley cultivars upon grain yield of the barley crop in the year of sowing and the subsequent year

Abstract

SUMMARYIn 1974 three cultivars of barley of different straw lengths, Mazurka, Julia and Midas, were grown alone and with each of four cultivars of red and two of white clover in a split-plot randomized-block experiment of four replications. Although the barley cultivars differed significantly in yield the barley x clover interaction was not significant and yield of grain was not affected by the presence of the clovers.In the following year the entire experimental area was sown with Mazurka barley. Significantly higher grain yields were obtained on those plots sown with clover in 1974 than in plots where no clover had been sown. In no case was the combined yield of barley from the 2 years on any treatment involving clover lower than that of the mean of the no-clover control plots, although the highest increase in yield, 11% from the S.123 red clover treatment, over the no-clover control was not shown to be significant.