Inter Row Hoe

[Western promise]

How many people are using a hoe ?
Has it worked for you?
Is it the future for all crops , I know the vegetable growers have been through the pain of losing chemicals ?

 

[Devil's advocate]

Love hoeing, yes it works apart from the weeds close to the crop & also boosts the crop (nitrofication, aeration breaking caps.)

However soil erosion, dosen't work when it rains & moisture loss in a drought.

 

[Muddyroads]

@Al R seems to get good results in cereals.

 

[Bogweevil]

Excellent on stone-free level fields in dry weather.

 

[Western promise]

https://www.facebook.com/244261932946794/posts/582992135740437

 

[Flat 10]

I can and do hoe beet but it’s time consuming and the results are far from perfect. My hoe is ok but struggles with bigger crop canopies. It’s not easy to find the window with herbicide programs, weather delays etc

 

[DrWazzock]

I can and do hoe beet but it’s time consuming and the results are far from perfect. My hoe is ok but struggles with bigger crop canopies. It’s not easy to find the window with herbicide programs, weather delays etc

Maybe it does work, but I’m not convinced. I sometimes think that by breaking up the residual herbicide cap we just chit more weeds especially volunteer OSR. I have not used our tractor hoe in beet for 8 years but still use a hand hoe to tidy the row ends where they meet the headland and to take out occasional blackgrass plants. Our tractor hoe is pretty rubbish at blackgrass but I haven’t actually decided to sell it yet … just in case.

 

[Bury the Trash]

I suppose Some of the Maize, this year would be perked up possibly by a hoe, as it had a pretty hard start.

Trouble is its just another soil structure breaker downer., plus the extra weight of the tractor and in moist soils atm.

 

[DrWazzock]

Actually wish I’d applied Centurion Max now. What seemed like a trivial number of blackgrass plants now seems to have multiplied from nowhere. Thought I’d got them all earlier with hand hoe. Now back roguing and it’s slow going in places.

 

[Devil's advocate]

Maybe it does work, but I’m not convinced. I sometimes think that by breaking up the residual herbicide cap we just chit more weeds especially volunteer OSR. I have not used our tractor hoe in beet for 8 years but still use a hand hoe to tidy the row ends where they meet the headland and to take out occasional blackgrass plants. Our tractor hoe is pretty rubbish at blackgrass but I haven’t actually decided to sell it yet … just in case.

That maybe is the best thing about hoeing, more weed chitting.

After all in this area root crops used to be called fallow, because in effect it was a fallow but one that produced a crop.

Much less important to convential producers but organic farmers will want to get that weed seed bank as low as possible.

If you hoe before you see a weed, you never will.

 

[ewald]

I have hoed the beet this year to take out some large bindweed that had got away from the herbicide.
I wouldn't do it as routine - as the Dr has said, you lose the residual chem layer by hoeing.
Bit tedious with a 6 row system, if you lose concentration you can end up with bare patches......

 

[Spud]

Hoeing cereals baffles me. All that effort to grow a cover to supress weeds, drill with low disturbance...then disturb it with a how, undoing all the good, letting the light see the soil, chittting the weeds!!! (not to mention increased compaction, chance of runoff and burning fuel)
I'd sooner sow the cash crop a bit later when its warmer and gets away quicker, into a cover crop mulch with as little disturbance as I can. For winter cereals close row spacings, plenty seed and pre ems.

I've spent many an hour scruffling beet (still do) to know it aint the way forward here.

 

[tw15]

As we are heading towards more environmentally sensitive production methods i can see interrow hoeing taking off especially wide row crops like maize etc . Technology we now have that can be used for hoeing has come leaps and bounds .