Red Clover

A short-lived perennial legume (Trifolium pratense) native to Europe, western Asia and northwest Africa, one of the most widely grown forage legumes in temperate agriculture, valued for high-quality hay and pasture and for its ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen in the soil, improving fertility for crops grown afterward in rotation. It has been deliberately cultivated as a fodder crop since at least the sixteenth century in Europe and was subsequently spread by European settlers to North America, Australia and other temperate regions, where it remains a staple component of pasture and hay-field seed mixes. Red clover is typically grown in combination with grasses rather than alone, and its role in nitrogen-fixing crop rotations made it historically important to the development of more intensive, sustainable temperate farming systems.