Docks and rotavating

[Scholsey]

Anybody get on well rotavating to destroy docks? Getting more and more docks in our leys and being organic obviously cant spray and even if i could i dont think i would want to with high clover %s we have.

 

[Martyn]

I think this may make them worse, if you chop a root into three and replant them they will all regrow. I'm finding pulling them the only answer, try doing 20 minutes every evening, I use an old buckrake Tyne.

 

[sticky]

I think I've seen @Kiwi Pete spray gorse and weeds with a high concentrated salt solution, could well be wrong but it springs to mind, that wouldn't harm your organic status would it?

 

[Derrick Hughes]

You will make them 10 times worse imo

 

[deleted user 837354]

Don't do it. Docks will grow from the tinest carrot of a root you have left. Roundup them first or they will be back to take revenge on their kin, probably 5 fold.

You must all spray the following crop (especially grass) for docks when you know you have an issue. Cheapest spraying and most effective you will ever do. Please don't omit it. Killing seedling or rootstock docks is so easy it's childsplay.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Don't do it. Docks will grow from the tinest carrot of a root you have left. Roundup them first or they will be back to take revenge on their kin, probably 5 fold.

You must all spray the following crop (especially grass) for docks when you know you have an issue. Cheapest spraying and most effective you will ever do. Please don't omit it. Killing seedling or rootstock docks is so easy it's childsplay.

Hes Organic though . @Sid says his cows eat docks

 

[deleted user 837354]

Hes Organic though . @Sid says his cows eat docks

Obviously if he is organic he can't spray so will need to pick them all by hand or pray to the Lord they don't choose to retaliate for being rotovated.

 

[Scholsey]

Obviously if he is organic he can't spray so will need to pick them all by hand or pray to the Lord they don't choose to retaliate for being rotovated.

surely if they are chopped Up fine enough they won’t grow? Ploughed a 5 year grass ley for fodder beet which I then hoed and it stayed reasonably clean but I now have a very docky field of winterwheat. The beet harvester did manage to lift some of the tap roots and were in with the beet they were that big!

 

[organicguy]

There is a "theory" that if you only slice a small piece off the top, maybe 1-2" it will not regrow.
I have also seen scientific research which says they will not grow back when cut off 6" deep.
I also heard of a farmer who nailed a root to the barn door for a year, replanted it and it grew!
I don't believe there is any sure fire way of killing them.
The main system I use is to make sure they don,t seed and not to plough or chop them up!

 

[Martyn]

surely if they are chopped Up fine enough they won’t grow? Ploughed a 5 year grass ley for fodder beet which I then hoed and it stayed reasonably clean but I now have a very docky field of winterwheat. The beet harvester did manage to lift some of the tap roots and were in with the beet they were that big!

We have one feild totally pickled with them so we stock fenced it and turned pigs in for twelve months not a dock insight once reseeded and lovely bacon, just fed them a little crimp corn and left them to it.

 

[Sid]

I think if you rotovate the top inch, then two inches then three inches and allow an interval between each pass for the sliced off part to dry out. It also dis-pleneshes the old tap root as well.

 

[wellingtonfarmer]

Thought organic just meant you are only allowed to spray at night?

 

[serf]

Thought organic just meant you are only allowed to spray at night?

Was going to suggest this to OP but resisted

 

[topground]

Hes Organic though . @Sid says his cows eat docks

Watched my Boer goats eating docks this evening, unfortunately they had escaped after some kind soul interfered with the electric fence so they weren’t my docks.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I think I've seen @Kiwi Pete spray gorse and weeds with a high concentrated salt solution, could well be wrong but it springs to mind, that wouldn't harm your organic status would it?

Yes I have, I wouldn't do it to docks though.

Where you create conditions for dock, you have dock - it's that simple

the harder you come down on them, the longer you have them around, and I also wouldn't use my electric weeder on them because that big deep root is pretty vital - that's why they are there

 

[Scholsey]

Watched my Boer goats eating docks this evening, unfortunately they had escaped after some kind soul interfered with the electric fence so they weren’t my docks.

I'd rather have the docks than goats

 

[Old Tip]

No, No, No No

 

[Dog Bowl]

I remember my work experience placement at Duchy Home Farm. David Wilson would min till the ground with a Lemken Smargard (spelling) tine cultivator. He would run this through a seedbed a fair number of times to rumble all dock roots to the top, where they would then be left to dry out and die off. A tine harrow was then used to rake them away and then be put on the bonfire.

Would not have 100% success but in an organic situation seemed to work OK.

 

[Bury the Trash]

Yes it does reduce a thick infestation.

 

[DartmoorEwe]

We had lots of docks until I stopped having cows fed in the fields and started rotational grazing with sheep. All the docks are now gone.