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glysophate free weedkiller

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lezelle:
Hi Ya, Well I think I will follow my normal way and keep away from weed killers. I have started, due to disability, a partial no dig system. I had some areas covered initially with black plastic and have covered under the fruit trees etc with cardboard. I am surprised how quickly the cardboard breaks down. I have been after the bind weed for years and believe I am starting to get it down but you have to be on it all the time. Thanks for the reply's everyone. Its a weeding I will go. I do have the loan of a flame gun so may use that as well. Bind weed is not such a problem as the rest of the annual weeds. Good luck all

gray1720:
Funnily enough, I found that field bindweed responded very well (ie it sulked, and struggled to take over in anything like its usual way) to hoeing - I got a dutch hoe last year, plus bugger-all else to do, and the difference it made to the ease of hoeing was astonishing. So this year it'll mostly be the dutch hoe. Mind you, I don't know how big your new baby is, Nick.

Unfortunately I lost most of a summer on the plot in 2017 when my father died and that's when the hedge bindweed that had been doing its best to encroach from a derelict plot next door got stuck in. Thankfully we have a more pragmatic chairman than the previous all-chemicals-are-evil-all scientists-are-evil* one, and I am using super-strength Roundup gel every time it shows its head (on that and nothing else) - digging out the big bits is fine, but we all know how small a bit will regenerate.... It seemed to be in retreat by late summer last year, and hopefully will remain so. The stuff is a ****ing menace on my plot!

Is glyphosate evil? Frankly I don't know, but I can tell you that there's some really bad science been published by its opponents, which doesn't give me much confidence in their arguments. Nothing is risk-free (eg see this for details of acetic acid: http://science.cleapss.org.uk/resource/SSS023-Ethanoic-acetic-acid.pdf, it will certainly make worms very unhappy indeed), I use the smallest amount that works I can, on as few weeds as possible.

*As a scientist, I was particularly peeved by this. Especially as our water comes from the Thames, so we get the benefit of everything put on every field upstream of us!

Obelixx:
Glyphosate has been found in water courses all over Europe and I do wonder about how that is affecting the water we drink and the wildlife, not to mention cattle, sheep, pigs, fish and other aquatic creatures who drink from or live in those waters.

I also think Monsanto is a deeply flawed amoral company run purely for profits and with little regard to the environment and especially the communities who grow and use its seeds and chemicals.

Bindweed here is sneaky.   It has very pretty pink tinged flowers which are fine in the wilder grass and wildflower areas of our plot but a pain in the veg garden and other beds.  It has the thick, white easily identifiable roots near the surface but they are brittle so break easily when forking or planting or hoeing.  The sneaky bit is the deeper roots which are brown and coiled like springs and seem to go down to China.   Very hard to spot and clear and each one would need a gallon of glyphosate to get right down to the last cell of the roots.

We're sticking with hoeing and cardboard and mulching.

Beersmith:

--- Quote from: gray1720 on March 24, 2021, 10:22:20 ---
Is glyphosate evil? Frankly I don't know, but I can tell you that there's some really bad science been published by its opponents, which doesn't give me much confidence in their arguments. Nothing is risk-free (eg see this for details of acetic acid: http://science.cleapss.org.uk/resource/SSS023-Ethanoic-acetic-acid.pdf, it will certainly make worms very unhappy indeed), I use the smallest amount that works I can, on as few weeds as possible.


--- End quote ---

This coincides with my own thinking. The empirical evidence is that glyphosate is low toxicity for animals birds and fish but worse for amphibians, and depending on soil conditions degrades sometimes quickly sometimes slowly.

But the world's agro businesses take this as justification to spread literally millions of tons of the stuff every year, often not even as a herbicide but a coupled to the use of resistant genetically modified crops, making profits from both the seed and the herbicide. 

The contrast between your cautious approach (my bolding above) and their total lack of constraint could hardly be greater.

BarriedaleNick:
The commercial practice of using weedkiller, well glyphosate, to ripen wheat crops is what gets my goat. It is used to kill the plant and desiccate the crops a week or two prior to harvest..
I am happy to use it in moderation on stubborn weeds but this seems a bit much.

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