Summary
Current Research
Developing improved cultivars of forage legumes for Texas requires evaluation and selection in diverse environments and input from many scientific disciplines. Each new cultivar depends on a team of research partners to advance from breeding lines to experimental cultivars to seed production to multi-location testing to cultivar release. The forage legume breeding program focuses on the development of new cultivars with superior traits, including pest resistance; high yield; improved seed production; high hard-seed percentage and reliable reseeding; reduction of anti-quality compounds; and adaptation to Texas soil and climate conditions.
Arrowleaf Clover
Management and recommendations:
- Test soil and follow lime and fertilizer recommendations
- Soil pH should be 6.0 to 6.5
- Plan acreage needed (0.5 to 0.8 acre/cow+calf)
- Graze or hay warm-season grasses to about two-inch height before planting
- Disturb sod with light disking and plant 10 lbs/acre
- Arrowleaf clover will provide grazing from March to June
- Will also provide about 100 lb nitrogen/acre that will be available to
warm-season grasses through nutrient cycling - Not a reseeding system if grazed until June
New Arrowleaf Clover Cultivars with Improved Performance from the Forage Legume Breeding Program at Overton:
- Apache Arrowleaf Clover is tolerant to bean yellow mosaic virus disease. Apache was released by the Texas Agricultural Equipment Station (now Texas A&M AgriLife Research) in 2001. Apache arrowleaf clover is licensed to East Texas Seed (903.597.6637). Please click on Apache Arrowleaf Clover for more information. (PVP #200200203)
- Blackhawk Arrowleaf Clover has multiple disease tolerance (both bean yellow mosaic virus and Pythium ultimum). Blackhawk was released by Texas A&M AgriLife Research in 2012. Blackhawk arrowleaf clover is licensed to Oregro Seeds (541.258.1001). Please click on Blackhawk Arrowleaf Clover for more information. (PVP pending)
White Clover
Neches white clover (Trifolium repens L.) is a synthetic variety of intermediate white clover with 147 parent plants selected for early and profuse flowering in combination with high leaf-to-stem ratio, and high potential forage production. Parent plants originated from five breeding populations that had been previously selected for early flowering through one or two cycles of recurrent selection. The parentage of Neches traces to five diverse germplasm sources: two plant introduction lines identified with superior perennial persistence; a local ecotype collection from Smith and Anderson counties in Texas; and two breeding lines from USDA-ARS that incorporated multiple sources of pest resistance and persistence. Neches flowers early compared to La S-1 and slightly earlier than Durana. Neches is in full bloom by mid-April at Overton, TX. The leaf size of this new cultivar is 20% larger than Durana. Forage yield is generally equal to La S-1 and other check white clover cultivars.
Neches was developed in the Forage Legume Breeding Program at Texas A&M AgriLife Research, Texas A&M University System, Overton, TX. Neches was approved for release in Jan. 2010. An exclusive license was granted to Barenbrug USA for seed production, marketing, and sales by Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Texas A&M University System, Aug. 24, 2011. An application for Plant Variety Protection was approved in 2013 (PVP# 201300086).
Management and recommendations
- Best adapted to bottomland and high-moisture soils
- Not recommended for upland soils
- Test soil and follow lime and fertilizer recommendations
- Soil pH should be 6.0 to 7.5
- Plan acreage needed (0.5 to 0.8 acre/cow+calf)
- Graze or hay warm-season grasses to about two-inch height before planting
- Disturb sod with light disking and plant 3-4 lbs/acre
- White clover will provide grazing from April to July
- Will also provide about 125 lb nitrogen/acre that will be available to
warm-season grasses through nutrient cycling - White clover is a perennial but often does not persist under hot, dry summers in the SE US
- Often managed as a reseeding annual
Read more in this article: Neches White Clover: a New Cultivar for the US Southern Region
Sweetclover
- Silver River Sweetclover
- History
- Preventing Toxicity
- Sweetclover Types
- Yield and Flowering
- Growth Habit
- Rust Disease
Annual white sweetclover (Melilotus alba Desr.) is a forage legume that has been used for pasture, hay, and soil improvement and is very well adapted to the blackland and prairie soils of the Southern Great Plains that extend through central Texas. Sweetclover was widely used in Texas prior to the 1950’s. Inexpensive nitrogen fertilizer reduced the use of all forage legumes and animal health concerns related to dicoumarol toxicity also contributed to the decline of sweetclover as a hay crop.
The goal of this research project is rapid development of multiple cultivars of annual sweetclover to match specific Texas needs. Improvements will include reduction of coumarin to eliminate sweetclover bleeding disorder in livestock, development of fine-stemmed types to improve forage quality, development of disease and resistance, and maintenance of high nitrogen fixation rates to reduce the need for nitrogen fertilization in livestock and farming systems.
‘Rio Verde’ Lablab
Lablab (Lablab purpureus [L.] Sweet) is a vining, herbaceous tropical legume with high nutritive value as forage or browse for ruminant animals. Useful qualities of this tropical forage include drought tolerance, high palatability, high nutritive value, excellent forage yields, and adaptation to diverse environmental conditions.
Currently, the seed of the Australian lablab cultivar ‘Rongai’ is imported into the US primarily for supplemental forage plantings for white-tailed deer. Rongai was released by the New South Wales Department of Agriculture in 1962. Rongai is very late maturing and generally does not flower in northeast Texas before frost.
‘Rio Verde’ lablab was developed through selection for tolerance to defoliation, forage production potential, and Texas seed production. ‘Rio Verde’ was developed at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Overton, Texas, and released by Texas A&M AgriLife Research in 2006. ‘Rio Verde’ is the first lablab cultivar developed in the US and also has the value-added trait of Texas seed production.
‘Rio Verde’ was developed through cooperative research with the following people:
Dr. Bill Ocumpaugh, Texas A&M AgriLife Research – Beeville
Dr. Jim Muir, Texas A&M AgriLife Research – Stephenville
Dr. James Reed, Texas A&M AgriLife Research – Dallas
Dr. Smith is employed by Texas A&M AgriLife Research and has worked at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Overton since June, 1981. He conducts plant breeding and genetics research on forage legumes and grasses. Cultivars released include: Apache arrowleaf clover; Overton R18 rose clover; Neches white clover; Rio Verde lablab and Sabine Crimson clover. Current research emphasis includes the following: disease resistance and seed production of lablab; alfalfa for the US southern region; improved forage rye; and forage-type cowpeas.
Dr. Gerald Ray Smith

Team Members
- Judson Harkless, Agricultural Research Worker
Publications
- Smith, G.R., F.M. Rouquette, Jr., and I.J. Pemberton. 2008. Registration of Rio Verde lablab. J. of Plant Reg. 2:15.
- Smith, G.R., F.M. Rouquette, Jr., and I.J. Pemberton. 2009. Lablab Bean: A New Multi-purpose Forage and Seed Crop for Texas. Proceedings of 14th Australasian Plant Breeding Conference. 10-14 Aug. 2009. Cairns, Australia
- Contreras-Goveartesia, F.E., S.V. Angadi, G.R. Smith, L.M. Lauriault, and D.M. VanLeeuwen. 2011. Fermentability and nutritive value of corn and forage sorghum silage when in mixture with lablab bean. Crop Science 51:1307-1313
- Rouquette, F.M., Jr. and G.R. Smith. 2010. Review: Effects of biological nitrogen fixation and nutrient cycling on stocking strategies for cow-calf and stocker programs. The Prof. Anim. Scientist 26:131-141.