Topic: japanese knotweed

[nsutherland]

please help its my first year on the allotment and have dicovered this weed. what can i do? i have been told to keep pulling it up but i am worried this could spread it any advice i will be very greatful ???

[Ant]

I think you have to contact your council if you have Japanese Knotweed, it is a very invasive weed and needs getting rid of properly.

[Barnowl]

Are you sure it's Japanese knotweed?

id_Japaneseknotweed

Because it's designated as controlled waste and so you have to be careful how you dispose of it or any soil that might contain it.

Definitely do not cut it - it will just make things worse. Leave all the bits you pull  up on a tarpaulin until they are obviously dead then burn them

Are you on a council owned site?

[Ant]

hmm, maybe not, but some councils do require you to report it.

The information is a bit misleading
http://www.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-countryside/non-native/knotweed.htm
says its not an issue if its on your land and you don't have to report it

Others say you can be liable for damage caused by it if its out of control on your land

http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=6568

has a whole section on what to do about it.

I would check with your allotment group and council first :)

[nsutherland]

its council property but the woman who runs the site who told me it what it was told me to get rid of it befor council sees do you think i should report it to council anyway?

[twinkletoes]

What a strange reaction!? ???  Why on earth would she say that?  I'd report it.
twinkletoes

[Barnowl]

It's not a reportable weed, so no legal requirement to tell the council (unless it's in your allotment rules). Different councils have different policies, so it might be worth having a scout around the Council website before reaching a decision.

But, if it already has been on the site and people have managed to get rid of it manually, I doubt that it is Japanese knotweed, which has roots going down metres not feet.

We had some on the farm when I was young and it took several years of nuking with sodium chlorate (which normally kills everything straight away) to get rid of it, so I hope it's been mis-identified. Please do double check against pictures on the internet. 
http://www.environet-uk.co.uk/japanese-knotweed3.php

[nsutherland]

its definitely Japanese knotweed. i wish it wasn't. at first we didn't know so we pulled out all we could and put it in the communal compost bin, and as you can imagine upset the site manager

[sarah]

it seems a bit strange for them to give you a plot with this weed growing on it. As you have learned from other posters it is not a run of the mill weed.  we complain about bindweed and horsetail but i think jap knotweed is a whole other kettle of fish. if you are a new plot holder i would complain in the strongest terms and ask to be relocated.

[nsutherland]

thankyou for all your replies. i will talk to my husband when he gets home and i think the best thing we can do from the advice given is go to the council and ask them to deal with the problem. we don't mind hard work but it seems like it would be impossible to get rid of ourselves and we don't really want to fall out with fellow lotties by spreading this weed.

[Barnowl]

I agree with Sarah - it's not run of the mill - don't think I've seen it mentioned on the forum before.   I'd check with the council's parks and gardens dept. They'll have someone licensed to use heavier herbicides.

If you have no luck getting a move or help,  glyphosate the knotweed (on a still dry day with no rain expected for 48 hours) and follow with a second dose around a week later.

Don't pull any out for some time once you have poisoned;  it takes time for the chemical to work down into the root system and you probably won't notice any effect for around 2 weeks.

[nsutherland]

that's just typical of me, get this great idea of having an allotment to grow our own veg, show the kids where there food comes from etc etc and i have Japanese knotweed. maybe they seen us coming and as beginners left us to it. when we got the plot in April it was covered in weeds so we rotavat ed the plot so probably got roots throughout now.

[Barnowl]

Don't despair. Start at the end furthest from the knotweed and do a little bit at a time, turn over the soil with a fork pulling out any roots you come across, then planting as you go. You'll be surprised how much progress you make  :)

[Robert_Brenchley]

There's no way you've introduced it if it's only your first year, so they can't blame you. Report it and see what reaction you get. Birmingham City Council are very hot on dealing with it; we've got it on several plots that they're working their way through. One plot was half covered in the stuff, and they dealt with it without killing the plants underneath, which surprised me.

[Hyacinth]

I heartily endorse Robert's comment about Birmingham City Council....abt 4 years ago an area adjacent to our cricket pitch where we walk our dogs  had been cordoned off and earmarked as another building for the hospital. Everything had been cleared off it and it had been roughly bulldozed....and then the knotweed started to appear :o We reported it to the Council; they came and did an inspection - and for TWO years the ground remained cordoned off while they treated the weed. They seem to have abandoned the building work now too - knotweed can break through a building's foundations.

It certainly can't be disposed of in general rubbish here in Brum, tho I suspect that it is. I have it in my garden and routinely do knotweed patrol, cut it to ground level & take bags of it to the tip for separate disposal. For me, tho, because it's not travelled to my veggie beds, it's not a great problem; don't envy you your situation at all :'( Good luck.

[Emagggie]

Oh dear! We live next to a pub car park and have an 8ft wall between us. The dreaded Knotweed grew under the wall and made it unsafe, so the brewery had to build us a new wall at great expense.Since then I have treated the knotweed myself, which has come up both sides,with neat industrial strength glysophate painted on each plant. After 3 years it's nearly gone, but now I notice it's breaking through the tarmac on the pavement. We have the local council parks and cems nursery backing on to our garden and they were the worst culprits for not treating the infestation they have on their land- I was told they didn't have the funding to treat it when I asked why it wasn't treated!!Luckily it's not too near our garden. They have a new manager who tells me they are spraying it now.
If I were you nsutherland, I would move on. It's going to be a few years before your plot can be productive. I think the woman who runs the site needs an earful at the very least for letting out a plot with JK on it. She very obvoiusly knows what it is.

[Vortex]

There was a report on the BBC Countryfile program about 2 years ago from one of the councils in Devon which had worked out how to deal with the weed.
I believe the principle is do nothing until September/October when the weed starts to die back naturally then hit it with glyphosphate. It seems that because the weed is naturally shutting down for the winter and is withdrawing nutrients into its roots it will take the weedkiller with it. Apparently this is the only time of the year when this works. 

[Uncle Joshua]

You do have to report Knotweed but most councils don't tend to do much about it.

When I got my plot 5 years ago every bit of it was covered in the stuff and it was at least 14" high, what I did/do is get as much of the root out as possible, over the years the amount of Knotweed  coming up seems to become less and less so getting the roots out does work.

On an unsed banking behind my plot I've planted comfrey which seems to stop the Knotweed growing, the comfrey is now in its second year and the Knotweed seems to be 90% down.

[nsutherland]

thankyou for all your messages i will be going up to see the woman who runs the allotment tomorrow and we are going to tell her we are phoning the council on monday. i will let you know how i get on thanks again for all your replies.