You need this one. It can operate in several feet of water. It has wheel but it can also "walk" so it can move in mud.
Welcome to the world of Menzi Muck - Menzi Muck AG
Not owning a Menzi Muck machine, nor having time to wait and see if I will get one for Christmas (and even if Santa was that kind, I would be bound to get it stuck), I knew getting the
Crassula out complete with it's routes was not going to be easy. I envisaged it needing something like a large drag net, possibly reinforced with stock fencing. In the past I have learned when doing something new, it's generally best to test things on a small scale and only scale up once one has gained a bit of experience of what works. With this in mind, I first started off trying to pull put the weed with a small hand rake. That was useless, it put too much pressure on one point on the plant, causing the stem to break very easily.
Mk 1 scoop
Next I was thing about making some kind of cage that I could pull over the bottom when I found a few offcuts of 1" weld mesh in my scrap pile. Not enough for a cage, but maybe a simple flat sheet would give the stems enough support to not break. No Muck machine, but I do have a muck fork and with a few zip ties to hold them together, it was time for another paddle.
With this I could push it in front of me, almost level with the bottom of the pond. I only needed to push a few feet to feel the water resistance build up as the plants flattened against the mesh. Lifting it up in the water, I could see not only intact stems, but roots too - it worked ! That evening I spent an hour or possibly more with it, making lots of short passes and each time carrying the uprooted plants to the bankside. I hadn't cleared that much of the pond, but what I had got done was enough to encourage me to try it again on a slightly bigger scale.
Mk 2 scoop
Next time I cut off the biggest piece of weld mesh I thought I could reasonably manage by hand. I was looking around for a handle when I remembered an ash felled a few months earlier that was still waiting to be cut for firewood. A straight ish length from it did the job, the slight kink making a good hand hold. Bolted together, it made what looked like a huge fly swatter.
It worked superb :dance1: . The best technique seemed to be to wade a few yards into the pond with the scoop above the water, then turn around and come back with it skimming along the bottom. This time I had taken care to grind smooth the edge of the weld mesh, so each time I came back to the bankside, I could thrust the scoop forward, then pull it back and the
Crassula would shoot off.
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