Organic weed control ideas

[hendrebc]

At least it will grow plenty of feed, browntop is easy to bury with a plough but hopefully if we keep it smothered and get some extra N it will help.
Have got sowing wheels coming that will handle big seeds like peas so will be experimenting with all sorts, will definitely be posting up pictures of the successes!

Maybe just PM any failures...

Ive only grown peas once in a mix with barley for wholecrop undersown with a grass mix. The peas grew like stink were 5 feet tall and smothered absolutely everything else. Had some patches barley on dry shaley hillocks and even some grass in some of that but in the rest of the field just peas and F-all else. Maybe 3 acres of barley with grass was a success and 11 of peas. I have no doubt of peas ability so smother everything!

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Ive only grown peas once in a mix with barley for wholecrop undersown with a grass mix. The peas grew like stink were 5 feet tall and smothered absolutely everything else. Had some patches barley on dry shaley hillocks and even some grass in some of that but in the rest of the field just peas and F-all else. Maybe 3 acres of barley with grass was a success and 11 of peas. I have no doubt of peas ability so smother everything!

That's the plan here, sow them really thickly and then push them in with all the stock I can muster, and let them smother everything. Just plan to bale them up early on for calf food and then see where we go from there.
I've never seen vetch other than what grows in the roadside jungle, but will grow a trial hopefully..and balansa clover, just to see which does what and for how long.

Balansa could be a good crop for @Pasty, it would probably drown his nettle patch judging the crops the Aussies get of it. It likes wet feet and has big hollow stems, not going all brown and tough like a red clover does.
I reckon that's the right track, using plants and animals to do the hard yards instead of joining the machinery spray machinery spray hamster wheel.

 

[JD-Kid]

At least it will grow plenty of feed, browntop is easy to bury with a plough but hopefully if we keep it smothered and get some extra N it will help.
Have got sowing wheels coming that will handle big seeds like peas so will be experimenting with all sorts, will definitely be posting up pictures of the successes!

Maybe just PM any failures...

rung the lime man
roto spike and put in a rape crop toss on a few tons to the ha of lime trust me on that idea
put the plow away the mat will not rot down

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I like the sounds of the "put the plough away" I'll get a picture over the weekend, if nothing else it will make Pasty feel much better about his bracken!!

 

[JD-Kid]

I like the sounds of the "put the plough away" I'll get a picture over the weekend, if nothing else it will make Pasty feel much better about his bracken!!

HAHAHAHA a roto spike is like a plow just slower so yer will get yer iron fix

 

[hendrebc]

That's the plan here, sow them really thickly and then push them in with all the stock I can muster, and let them smother everything. Just plan to bale them up early on for calf food and then see where we go from there.
I've never seen vetch other than what grows in the roadside jungle, but will grow a trial hopefully..and balansa clover, just to see which does what and for how long.

Balansa could be a good crop for @Pasty, it would probably drown his nettle patch judging the crops the Aussies get of it. It likes wet feet and has big hollow stems, not going all brown and tough like a red clover does.
I reckon that's the right track, using plants and animals to do the hard yards instead of joining the machinery spray machinery spray hamster wheel.

Im looking at growing balsana in a couple of years (when i get out of this damned agri enviroment scheme ) mostly as an alternative to cereal wholecrop silage with more protein that the rats wont eat and some grazing later but also to smother weeds. Starting to get real fed up of sprays that i pay a lot of money for and can never get the right weather to put on. Always too windy or raining

 

[Kiwi Pete]

HAHAHAHA a roto spike is like a plow just slower so yer will get yer iron fix

Yeah. I quite like dragging iron at someone else's expense! This is gnarly native sand dune country so very hard to hold much in the way of nutrient, the pH at a metre is 11 and 5.something at the surface....
Was a bit loathed to plough it - more thinking a few days with the discs needs pushed in not pulled up IMO.
Does totara mind lots of lime?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Im looking at growing balsana in a couple of years (when i get out of this damned agri enviroment scheme ) mostly as an alternative to cereal wholecrop silage with more protein that the rats wont eat and some grazing later but also to smother weeds. Starting to get real fed up of sprays that i pay a lot of money for and can never get the right weather to put on. Always too windy or raining

I think Balansa likes the autumn when the weather is usually better for sowing.. I am a fan of peas as winter fodder for the same protein reasons.
Ryegrass is maintenance tucker!

I think it could be a good thing for us down here, will keep you posted on our progress via the Balansa clover thread.

 

[hendrebc]

I think Balansa likes the autumn when the weather is usually better for sowing.. I am a fan of peas as winter fodder for the same protein reasons.
Ryegrass is maintenance tucker!

I think it could be a good thing for us down here, will keep you posted on our progress via the Balansa clover thread.

They say here if i sow in the autumn i can get 3 cuts from it the next year but if sown in spring will only get one. That would suit me well its always a struggle to find time in spring to get cereals in and lamb and calve and everything else at the same time.
Ill go lool for that balsana clover thread now. More bedtime reading for me

 

[JD-Kid]

Yeah. I quite like dragging iron at someone else's expense! This is gnarly native sand dune country so very hard to hold much in the way of nutrient, the pH at a metre is 11 and 5.something at the surface....
Was a bit loathed to plough it - more thinking a few days with the discs needs pushed in not pulled up IMO.
Does totara mind lots of lime?

whats the soil test make up show in mg, K and Na
i'm guessing sand dunes may be lacking in Ca

 

[renewablejohn]

I knocked my land back into shape with some fergi discs used straight to cut the sward then crossed the field with a fergi drill sowing clover. Have also used the fergi drill to put on granulated lime.

 

[JD-Kid]

Yeah. I quite like dragging iron at someone else's expense! This is gnarly native sand dune country so very hard to hold much in the way of nutrient, the pH at a metre is 11 and 5.something at the surface....
Was a bit loathed to plough it - more thinking a few days with the discs needs pushed in not pulled up IMO.
Does totara mind lots of lime?

disced alot of our browntop ground here and with light dirt it ended up looking like fiber door mats and dust hard to get to break down
found roto spike ripped it up in to smaller bits tossed on rape with lime and harrowed it in for first year crop then could work eazer following years
out of native ground it was a case of first year was just get a rough seed bed and let time sort out some of the matting
also spike mixed om in the top few inchs not hideing it 6-8 inchs deep

 

[Ysgythan]

Buy an electric fence, strip graze in big groups in short bursts with three week grazing intervals. What they don't eat they tread.

Be careful with bracken, young regrowth (asparagus stage) is poisonous.

Oh, and you'll be a slave to the electric fence and water troughs, will need more stock and will become all evangelistic about "rotations" "mobs" "Rappa" "IBC" etc.

 

[The Ruminant]

Part of the skill of weed control is, as some have already mentioned, to address the cause and not the symptoms (the weeds are usually a symptom of a problem and not the problem in themselves.

For example, why do many horse paddocks have lots of ragwort in them? For the same reason that we have one field that is thick with ragwort, despite pulling it religiously every year at flowering. The cause (problem) seems to be overgrazing, opening up the sward, reducing competition from grass and creating good conditions for the ragwort (in our case, the field in question is grazed hard by rabbits coming out of a quarry. It's in HLS no-input so not worth fencing then out at the moment.

Another example, this time docks and spear thistle: I experimented with late autumn "bale grazing" (where round bales are left in the field along with a cover of grass; the land is strip grazed and the bales opened as the cows reach them). This was four years ago. You can still see, to the inch, where the bales stood and the cattle poached the topsoil as there are rings of docks and spear thistle on each spot.

A third example, positive this time: we had a field inundated with spear thistle before we started mob grazing. Over time the cattle have nibbled the thistle flowers off, the sward has thickened and the grass has outcompeted the thistle. There are hardly any in the field any more. In the case, the cause was probably the timing and frequency of grazing - once that was changed the symptom disappeared.

Most plants, except for trees, are succession plants. They exploit a problem and, through growing there, try to change the conditions. As they change and "improve" the conditions, they will be outcompeted by the next plants in the succession chain, and so it goes on until the area is covered in trees. The trick is to arrest the succession at the point where grasses are the most favoured species: the prairies, much of the African plains etc do it naturally due to lack of rainfall. Here in the UK we have to be a bit more hands-on to stop trees, ultimately, encroaching.

Think of blackgrass on arable land: as we've cultivated our ground harder and harder using bigger and bigger machines, and spread more fertiliser, all helping to use up or lose soil organic matter, blackgrass has become a symptom of a problem. Cold, regularly tilled, slumping soils with high fertility and low organic matter seem to encourage blackgrass. Change the management to low disturbance (direct drilling, or no disturbance (a grass ley), and the symptom disappears (often replaced by a different one in the chain of succession)

That's my thoughts anyway

 

[Pasty]

Great post. My own experience with spear thistle is that flower removal is enough to stop it in time. We had a field thick with it and I did mow it many times. However, it was only when I put the goats in and they went and nipped off the flowers that I started winning. I think sometimes thistle flowers can keep developing into see once cut. You see it with creeping ones too. I guess it's like all species. If you keep chopping the males knackers off, they won't be lasting long!

Creeping thistle I am also winning against. I haven't started war on docs yet but I reckon it's a case of proper hard grazing early and late, as you say. Maybe chickens as well.

Bracken, having fought a war of attrition on it this year I think it's more soil than anything. Next year I will be trying to get as much muck on the field as possible so will be trying to get mobs of cattle in early before it pops up. Then just keep on mulching it and keep sheep on there plus probably some poultry as well. In fact would be interesting to give a spot over to intensive chickens for a year, re-seed and see what comes back.

 

[Rosco]

Yes