Overwintering of Clover Nodules in Alpine Conditions

Abstract

As part of a programme investigating soil conservation in the Snowy Mountains area of New South Wales, trials were conducted in which seedlings of Trifolium ambiguum M. Bieb. and T. repens L. (Ladino clover) were planted in the spring of 1960 in eroded areas on Carruthers Peak adjacent to Mt. Kosciusko (lat. 36° 24'S., long. 14So IS'E.) at an elevation of about 7000 ft. Seedlings were raised in seed boxes of soil which had been massively inoculated with appropriate strains of nodule bacteria. Effectively nodulated seedlings were transplanted into peat cups filled with soil. This step was necessary because of the extreme host variation with respect to nodule formation and effectiveness in T. ambiguum (Hely 1957, 1963). The cups were planted intact together with a complete fertilizer mixture; at that stage all plants were well nodulated and the soil in the cups contained large numbers of nodule bacteria.