Fixation

FIXatioN is a proprietary balansa clover from Grassland Oregon, and balansa clover is Trifolium michelianum — a cool-season annual from the northeastern Mediterranean, not the red or white clover most growers picture. Its selling point is cold: Territorial Seed reports survival down to -14F, which makes it the hardiest annual clover in commerce and lets it overwinter where crimson clover reliably dies. Great Basin Seeds records it flowering roughly 14 days later than Dixie crimson clover and up to 28 days later than other commercial balansa varieties, so it keeps producing vegetative biomass well into spring instead of shutting down at bloom. It also handles ground that defeats other legumes, tolerating pH from about 4.5 to 8.3 and surviving waterlogged soil and short-term flooding. The seed is tiny — 500,000 seeds per pound — which is why it seeds at 3-5 lb/acre in a mix where crimson would need up to 15 lb, and that low rate is a real part of its cover-crop economics.