Organic weed control ideas

[Treemover]

It can get a rust or something. We had fields like that, that went mad with docks for a few years in silage ground, and then went all rusty and were gone.

 

[Horn&corn]

Hi all. Been conventional then organic then conventional now organic again. Before most recent conversion we spent a lot on dock and thistle spray to give us a head start. Dock spray an amazing success in year one but year 2 you wouldn't have known we'd been out there. Worse than ever. Topping or mowing behind mob grazing dairy cows only way to keep on top of it. Presume regular mowing would work as well. At least if you have these weeds you have fertile fields so it's not all bad. Spear thistle dig them out, creeping July then they'll die although this takes many years. Ragwort- pull it. Braken heavy crimped roller I've heard. Over seeding with vigourous grasses can help on all these.

 

[Horn&corn]

Oh forgot. Dock Bettles effect is incredible. We had a field smothered once and next year nothing. By far the most effective in a thick population. Found a few on the mower the other day so I must collect a few and move them to next worse field.

 

[dudders]

I just put up a reply here:

https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/docks.176752/page-2#post-3944224

that deals with my experience with getting rid of docks organically.

 

[ladycrofter]

Sorry to say we came out of organic farming many years ago for the very thing your are asking about. Plus the ridiculous fees.

Coud not stop the spread of creeping thistle - tried everything for years - multiple cutting, squashing, vinegar, salt, blah blah blah, nothing worked.

Could not reduce numbers of spear thistle - again, tried everything, including torching them. Don't dig them up! You expose more seeds to sunlight and where there was one, you'll have three. They need sunlight to germinate BTW. Whacking them at ground level resulted in some pretty impressive shrub-sized specimens.

Nettle - had some big patches but it is very nutritious, so used to cut it and the sheep would devour it.

Bracken wasn't such a problem and the livestock ate whatever few bits tried to sprout our side of the fence.(I know it should have killed them but Shetland sheep you know.)

Docks - see above, sheep cleaned them out.

It was a question of losing fields to rapidly spreading creeping thistle, or spot-spr*ying. Even then it has taken years to get on top of it.

 

[ladycrofter]

To be fair I suspect in many cases chemicals have had to replace labour.

Even in the last 100yrs here there would have been enough incentive and labour to go out cutting and harvesting hundreds of acres of bracken.

Now it's just 1 person...... muggins here

Interesting bracken fact - bracken used to be collected, burned, and the ash rolled into balls and shipped south for soap-making. It was used to make the alkaline part of the reaction. (Same ideas as washing a pan when camping - rub campfire ash into the bacon fat, it forms crude soap.) One of the many unpleasant ways people supplimented their meagre income. Wasn't it also used to stuff mattresses?

As said, those were the days of cheap labour and many mouths to feed.

 

[Sid]

Plus the ridiculous fees

1% of my premium goes on Certification fees.

 

[neilo]

1% of my premium goes on Certification fees.

Are the fees higher for large dairy businesses, than they are for a Croft (which is what @ladycrofter farms presumably)?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

For most of the weeds you mentioned, @Pasty, I think you're going to have to either grub out (take the roots) or mow and remove- at least for a start.
Then, as others have said, mob stocking- if you can even have one heifer and a handful of ewes with good teeth, use them as tools..
You must have very tough and resilient weeds on your side of the equator, for the things you've already done not to have been effective.. never underestimate what cattle trampling and tight ewe grazing will achieve IMO
I guess the mechanical equivalent is strimming or mowing to the dirt, and heavy rollers, but stock are edible

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I should add to my above post
Don't just throw away all your bracken and nettles, layer them alternately and compost them..
just burn ragwort and things like that..
your nettles etc have been thriving for years on being able to get nutrients unavailable to the pasture species, so it makes no sense to get rid of it all, when you can still break them down to their orgasmic origins.. just add a layer of lime to each layer of compostable material to speed up the process.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

1% of my premium goes on Certification fees.

Can I enquire roughly much it costs you guys for certification, that's my main stumbling block, here it's about $2000 per annum (or for me, $20 per acre per year).
Already doing quite o.k. without chemicals etc but this season the schedules here are about as high for non-certified produce.
I'd be better spending my $2000 on diesel, torch batteries and strimmer string.

 

[Wheyibuggermair]

There it is again. Don't mention spray, I'm not doing it under any circumstances.............................. Spray it.

There is no hope for UK farming. Constipation of imagination.

What has gone wrong? Has subsidy caused this? Can we no longer manage the land without paying the dirty little shitweasel chem salesman his due? They have got us. Truly got us. UK farming is brain dead and needs a revolution.

Found topping and flailing reduce the dock and thistle infestation to a manageable level, seems once they are hammered enough other stuff (esp clover) seems to keep them in check.
Haven't bothered with me ferns they stick to the same area and I like them, so live and let live.

 

[Wheyibuggermair]

Ok Pasty help is at hand...mob-grazing is the answer. We had pastures full of creeping and other thistles, docks, buttercups, nettles etc and we used to spray them, which got rid of any clovers or other useful herbs and the thistles etc came back same as before.
Once we let the grass grow nice and tall, then trampled the lot with a mob of cattle and let it all grow back again and repeat and repeat, we found that thistles had gone, the cattle ate the nettles, docks etc give up as the grass roots are stealing their thunder and fields that were yellow with buttercups are, this year, green with long grass. I won't say we've completely cracked it as there are still some docks and the odd thistle and buttercup, but it is an organic solution that isn't gay, it works and is an utter joy to practise and to behold.
I'm off now to move the mob...

You wouldn't like to move them to SE Northumberland for a couple of months?

 

[Sid]

Can I enquire roughly much it costs you guys for certification, that's my main stumbling block, here it's about $2000 per annum (or for me, $20 per acre per year).
Already doing quite o.k. without chemicals etc but this season the schedules here are about as high for non-certified produce.
I'd be better spending my $2000 on diesel, torch batteries and strimmer string.

£2.60/ac my cert fees are

 

[Kiwi Pete]

£2.60/ac my cert fees are

I'd be happy with that.
Maybe I need a bigger farm!?
Then again, the figure I gave is only equivalent to 20 litres of mineral drench and 2 ton of urea and I know which is going to increase my income the most, the premium per kg out the gate.

 

[Treg]

We are organic and have been for years.
I used to top regularly to kill thistles, docks, nettles etc but our worst is ragwort.

I found topping did work, especially using a mower rather than a topper. It def cleaned up our paddocks. But I was topping every second grazing or every grazing if the dirt was getting away.

But I found the only solution to ragwort was to rotate ground; which also reduced weeds.

Agree with tree mover, have been Organic for years too, top with mower not topper.
Needs doing before seeding or its pointless, today would be ideal

 

[Man_in_black]

years of 'prairie' grazing

What's that?

 

[martian]

If such weeds could be reasonably controlled by management, we'd all be doing it as a matter of course.

But as weeds are there because of past management, you'd think it would be simple enough to get rid of them with current management. The reason that they appear is (without wanting to sound too poncey) that there is an ecological niche for them...ie high phosphorous fertility, like under trees where animals congregate, you get nettles; or compacted areas suit docks and thistles which with their tap-roots can out-compete grasses. Spraying them isn't sorting out the problem, you are merely treating the symptoms. Strangely enough, the docks etc can cure the compaction and thus eliminate their own niche, leaving the ground perfect for grass.

Similarly, continuously grazing a pasture (ie set-stocking) will result in the animals eating the tastiest grasses down to the ground and favouring thistles/docks etc (and Yorkshire Fog) resulting in weed infestation. You can top this the whole time, but it is really much easier and cheaper to mob-graze. If you go and look at any of the worlds great grasslands, which are mob-grazed by vast herds of herbivores (wildebeest, bison etc), you won't find thistles and docks being a problem or taking over. What fun it is recreating these conditions on your very own farm...we've even got African weather at the moment...

 

[slackjawedyokel]

Can I enquire roughly much it costs you guys for certification, that's my main stumbling block, here it's about $2000 per annum (or for me, $20 per acre per year).
Already doing quite o.k. without chemicals etc but this season the schedules here are about as high for non-certified produce.
I'd be better spending my $2000 on diesel, torch batteries and strimmer string.

To give you an idea, on 180ha (450ac) my total certification fee this year was £824+vat.
This comprised £560 organic certification + £132 beef and lamb assurance (red tractor scam) + £132 cereals assurance (without on- farm storage).

 

[Pasty]

Agree with tree mover, have been Organic for years too, top with mower not topper.
Needs doing before seeding or its pointless, today would be ideal

I'm using a flail mower (tow along self powered thing which seems to be doing a good job on the thistle at least. I don't mind nettle in small qty but I do need to knock it back a bit. I would estimate I have about an acre at the top of one field with no grass underneath. It's where the sheep have always gone at night so no surprise it's very fertile.