this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2025
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Just in case people are wondering about this, it's true. Clover is a legume. Meaning it gets nitrogen from the air and puts it into the soil. This effectively means the clover is fertilizing the soil. Seeing lots of clover can be a sign that the soil lacks nitrogen and can't grow much else.
Slight clarification: Dutch Clover (trifolium repens) under nitrogen deficient conditions, at temperatures above 50F and below 95F, and with the correct rhyzobium species present, with soil pH between 5.5 & 8.0, can produce nitrogen that is stored in its tissue.
When clover is mowed and the clippings mulched back into the soil, the decomposition of the leaves adds nitrogen to the soil. If you remove the clippings the nitrogen goes with it.
Clover doesn't just release more nitrogen into the soil, it takes a bit of work.
Yes, "green manure" is taking nitrogen fixing crops (like clover and beans and peanuts) and to mulch them while still green, and incorporate that decomposing mulch into the soil you're using. That adds nitrogen in fewer steps than the traditional way of using animal manure (where the nitrogen still ultimately comes from plants).
Of course, the modern Haber process also fixes nitrogen through industrial chemistry rather than agriculture, so most commercial fertilizer today gets its nitrogen from chemical synthesis of atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia.