Wicked Tuff Turf Balansa Clover Seed

The cover crop for ground that stays wet — a high-nitrogen legume that thrives in soggy, clay, and flood-prone fields where other clovers drown.

Balansa Clover (Trifolium michelianum, also written Trifolium balansae) is a winter annual — meaning it grows over the cool season, sets seed, and finishes in one year, but reseeds itself so a stand can return on its own. As a legume it does nitrogen fixation: it pulls nitrogen out of the air and stores it in the soil, banking fertility for the next crop you plant. What sets Balansa apart is that it tolerates waterlogging — wet, poorly drained, heavy clay soils that kill most clovers. It produces a lot of biomass (plant material), and its hollow stems break down quickly after the crop is terminated, releasing those nutrients back into the ground. Our seed is uncoated and tested for purity and germination.

Key Benefits

•     Wet-soil specialist: tolerates waterlogged and seasonally flooded ground — rare among clovers.

•     High nitrogen fixer: 100–200 lbs of nitrogen per acre, among the highest of annual clovers.

•     Self-reseeding: sets heavy seed before summer, returning year after year with little input.

•     High biomass: abundant growth for green manure (a crop grown to be worked back into the soil to enrich it).

•     Weed suppression: rapid canopy closure smothers winter and spring weeds.

•     Pollinator support: dense, globe-shaped blooms feed bees and beneficial insects.

Best Uses

•     Cover crop in wet, heavy clay, or flood-prone fields

•     Green manure and nitrogen banking for the following cash crop

•     Pasture improvement in poorly drained areas

•     Regenerative and no-till rotations

•     Pollinator habitat and beneficial insect support

Important Notes

Surface-sow shallow — it is very small seed, so plant from the surface to no deeper than ¼ inch or it may not emerge. Balansa is a winter-annual cover crop, not a permanent residential lawn, and it does not tolerate foot traffic. In extreme northern zones it winter-kills, so it is planted in spring there (Zones 3–5) instead of fall.

Why Choose Old Cobblers Farm™?

Every bag of Wicked Tuff Turf seed is selected for high purity and strong germination, and tested so you know what you are planting — consistent, clean, uncoated seed for growers who want reliable results.