Salt 'n' Vinegar with that?

[andybk]

Had my certs 15 years........ have never once been asked to produce them when buying sprays.

Only people who want to see them are........FABBL

mvf now want to see them , rang last week , no cert no spray (thistlex and mcpa )

 

[milkloss]

Pa 1 is enough.

 

[andybk]

Pa 1 is enough.

signed up for the course at ashton court bristol £385 pa1 plus knapsack , may 13th / 14th ? still places i think if anyone else wants a place . i wouldnt have bothered , but it WILL come in for everywhere at some point , like the dip cert, and will only get dearer and harder

 

[exmoor dave]

mvf now want to see them , rang last week , no cert no spray (thistlex and mcpa )

Thats a bugger I do get all mine from mvf, haven't ordered anything yet this year though.

 

[Kevtherev]

@Kiwi Pete

 

[Kiwi Pete]

@Kiwi Pete

Cheers @Kevtherev for the tag, I'm still wading through the kiwi bashing thread aka easy ram tups
Salt and vinegar works a charm, I mostly chip thistles with a grubber but kill all my gorse with salt & vinegar.
I use hot water as you can dissolve more salt per gallon, I make 100 gallon/450 litre brews and only put a litre or 2 of vinegar in
(homebrew cider vinegar)
I've found best results on hot days like with any gorse spray, it seems to scorch it in a day but takes a few weeks to make it look properly dead.
For killing smaller patches of weeds like dock thistle and ragwort, I just put a measure of salt straight on them, a double handful will collapse a big ragwort plant in a day, round the yard I just cut a window in the side of a 25kg bag and put it in a barrow or on the bike, and use a small tin for a scoop.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Not very good pictures but a good kill, plusses are that it's organic, safe to get covered in residue if wading through sprayed vegetation, stock can graze sprayed areas immediately, and it's really cheap.
Negatives, salinity can theoretically build up in the soil and prevent anything growing, corrosive on steel surfaces like quad carriers, and conventional farmers think you're bonkers! Oh and it's very non-selective, kills any plant it contacts so make sure you don't drip it on the lawn.

Lighter rates of salt will usually encourage stock to eat more pasture, makes old grass more palatable and increases tillering, areas amongst the gorse I sprayed are now the first areas the lambs go to graze, preferring it to the nice lush grass I topped.

I'll be mixing my liquid seaweed fert with seawater not freshwater as they both cost the same [emoji106] even though I'm two miles from the sea the pasture responds to salt application. Will run a trial patch to see if there's much of a difference.

 

[Pasty]

That's pretty interesting. I used neat white vinegar with a load of salt mixed in on the garden path. Maybe overdid it! Will try some thistles tomorrow while I watch the goats to see where the buggers are getting out every day.

 

[neilo]

@Pasty my advice would be to use something effective (like Thistlex?), once. Get it cleaned up now, so you have less of an issue to deal with if you take the next step to nonsenseland, and sign up with the orgasmatrons.

If Salt & Vinegar sprays worked effectively, some of us 'nasty conventional farmers' would have been using them, instead of spending money on chems.
On the plus side, I suspect they might be 'clover (& everything else) safe'.

 

[yellowbelly]

use something effective (like Thistlex?)

The number one thistle killer(I suspect the clue is in the name)

Of course, as it has no knapsack recommendation, none of us would ever dream of using it other than in a sprayer

 

[dazza b]

mvf now want to see them , rang last week , no cert no spray (thistlex and mcpa )

Well u don't need to all you need to do is show the inspectors whoever has put it on has all the correct numbers you do not need a pa1 to buy chems

 

[Kiwi Pete]

That's pretty interesting. I used neat white vinegar with a load of salt mixed in on the garden path. Maybe overdid it! Will try some thistles tomorrow while I watch the goats to see where the buggers are getting out every day.

I haven't actually noticed much of a kill difference when knapsacking, between a mix of hot salt water, vs vinegar added. But the kids keep bringing home bags of crabapples so I keep brewing it up, like most things here they have to be free or really cheap!
I have metsulfuron (Answer) from the old family farm and it works just as fast and well as the salt solution and probably better if the plant isn't actively growing, I spray a fair bit of it for the neighbours and the dairyfarm in those pictures wants me to use salt next time, and has started using salt in his wiper as a trial, I think glyphosate and Tordon will be better for that though. Salt isn't quite as much of a whiff-killer as the death-ray sprays are, but I need the safety aspect here with kids in tow. I wouldn't have them anywhere near me if spraying with chemical. Maybe I am actually bonkers, but I have them help drag the spray hose/drive the tractor home/make the vinegar etc so it's got to the stage they want to come out killing weeds
I do appreciate not everyone is same as me, a pallet of ag salt is a lot bigger and harder to keep dry than a drum of MCPA, but you can't feed the leftovers to your animals or pickle meat in it. Plus it seems to be hard on slugs (be careful if you use it after rain as you'll nail the earthworms and beneficials)
I've often wondered why salt spruces up pasture, maybe the plants see it as a threat and mycorrhizae gives the grass a kick in the ribs? Strange - but mankind doesn't know all the answers, despite what all the agronomists try to make out. Man-made solutions to man-made problems, much of the time.

 

[cows250]

For doing spot thistle treatment, I would cut them off and pour some salt down the hollow stalk....bye bye thistle. Even better, get some salt water spray and find some curious livestock. Let them know you have some tasty salt water and start spraying plants....then spray some young thistles. Once they get the taste, they keep eating them, salted or not.

 

[Henarar]

mvf now want to see them , rang last week , no cert no spray (thistlex and mcpa )

Thats a bugger I do get all mine from mvf, haven't ordered anything yet this year though.

I bought 30 acres from MVF last week they said nothing about a cert, it is printed on the ticket that whoever uses it has to have a cert though
If you use a contractor what do they think you are going to pay them to get your spray from MVF what a load of sh!t that is

 

[Pasty]

For doing spot thistle treatment, I would cut them off and pour some salt down the hollow stalk....bye bye thistle. Even better, get some salt water spray and find some curious livestock. Let them know you have some tasty salt water and start spraying plants....then spray some young thistles. Once they get the taste, they keep eating them, salted or not.

I'll try that later when (if) they get tall. They are rosette at the moment so going to give them a blast in the centre of each plant and see what happens. I've got goats in the same field but they are young and not keen on thistle. I'm told they may get to like them as they get older. Maybe with some seasoning, they might take a shine to them now. I'm hoping that at least they will like the flowers later in the year and stop any re-seeding going on. I've topped them before but suspect I have left it too late and the seeds have developed anyway in the felled heads.

Might do 2 test groups. 1 with the salt and vinegar and one with just hot water and salt.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Might do 2 test groups. 1 with the salt and vinegar and one with just hot water and salt.

Don't melt your sprayer
You'll be surprised how much salt will go in if you get the temperature up though, I'm thinking some of the brews I've put on gorse may have been close to a 40% solution but of course it cools down as you chug away down the farm with it.
I'm always amazed at how it wipes out things that glyphosate etc only check, clover, shamrock are usually back in a month but nope. It's left the building...
As mentioned above, chipping the plant off and then salting is really effective if you can, especially things like ragwort if they've formed seed by the time you get there.
Best of luck, keep us posted!

 

[NZDan]

I suppose the point is that I've just sprayed my garden path which was gravel but is now grass and my dog is now sitting on it and my children will play on it when they get back. If it works, isn't it better than putting poison into your soil? Anyway, we'll see.

But it's still poison. Salt and vinegar are both very poisonous in any thing more than small amounts.

 

[Pasty]

Don't melt your sprayer
You'll be surprised how much salt will go in if you get the temperature up though, I'm thinking some of the brews I've put on gorse may have been close to a 40% solution but of course it cools down as you chug away down the farm with it.
I'm always amazed at how it wipes out things that glyphosate etc only check, clover, shamrock are usually back in a month but nope. It's left the building...
As mentioned above, chipping the plant off and then salting is really effective if you can, especially things like ragwort if they've formed seed by the time you get there.
Best of luck, keep us posted!

Luckily no ragwort here. I guess they don't like the clay.

 

[Pasty]

But it's still poison. Salt and vinegar are both very poisonous in any thing more than small amounts.

Yes it is. Water can kill you if you drink too much. The point being that I am not going to worry if my or anyone else's kids come back to the house with salt and vinegar on their fingers and then grab a sandwich. If they come back with triclopyr and clopyralid on their fingers, it may not be such a good outcome.

Could my goats eat too much recently salted thistle and get an issue? I guess that's a possibility.

 

[multi power]

But it's still poison. Salt and vinegar are both very poisonous in any thing more than small amounts.

There would probably be a lot less poison in the small amount of roundup it would take to do the same job