Late summer or fall seedings tend to reach maturity, set seed and die by July of the following summer. This can reduce its total lifetime production by as much as 30 percent. One of the most common ways to seed sweet clover is to overseed on fall-seeded small grain or at spring oats seeding time. Eight pounds of scarified seed per acre is usually sufficient to get a good stand of sweet clover. A cool season grass should also be seeded with it.
Sweet clover contains a high percentage of hard seeds that persist in the soil for many years.
This accounts for its consistent volunteering in many areas. The same strains of bacteria that are used to inoculate alfalfa will inoculate sweet clover. Diseases and insects Sweet clover is usually considered more resistant to diseases than red clover. Insects are troublesome to sweet clover. In particular, it is susceptible to the sweet clover weevil.