Picture posting is enabled for all :)
If it were me and I was spraying a half an acre I would hire a back pack spray and do it with this.
, and it hadn't occurred to me to use a watering can which is a brilliant idea! So thanks, once again this site comes to the rescue :D :D
Plants are either in an active vegetative growth phase, an active reproductive phase or senescing/dying and most are dormant at some point of the year. All systemic herbicides are slightly modified plant hormones, which is what allows them to be moved around the plant before it kills them. When a plant is growing in the spring it is vegetative and all the plants products, such as hormones or nutrients, are moved throughout the plant. Once the plant becomes reproductive then all the plants products are geared to producing viable seed so things like hormones or nutrients do not go throughout the plant uniformly and will not kill it completely. This phase of growth dominates by the time late summer or autumn comes around. You should really wait until spring to spray as an autumn application may just need to be repeated then anyway! Autumn could be the best time to plough and disc though. What a plough does is invert the soil as far down as the plough shear will go so that what was on top would be buried. If it is done properly that should be 25cm down. Most/all weeds will simply not be able to re-grow from that depth and will rot. A farmer will then run a disc harrow (or a spring tine cultivator) over the soil in the spring and create a weed free (at least until seeds germinate) seed bed. When I dig by hand I make sure that I also turn over the soil completely and bury the weeds- I never pick out weeds! It is the same principle.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTxr9j-0geIand http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsc6coGeB7s&feature=related I hope you can stand the accent! (They don't do a great job as their plot is too small. Ploughing well is a great skill, which is why there are competitions, but even I do better than the video and I'm just a market gardener.) There are other options at the side which also illustrate what a plough and harrow are supposed to do. What you do not want to use is a rotovator, of any size, as it will simply chop up the weeds, including pieces of root, and disperse them throughout the soil profile. They can easily re-grow if they are not buried deeply enough