Mechanical cultivation for weeds

[JoeBiscuit]

Take it from an old farmer who spent WAY too many days in the sun riding a tractor, cultivating corn.....It CAN be done, but spraying is a FAR more productive, far less expensive, less time consuming method.

FWJ,

I'm sure you are correct. It'll be inefficient, time consuming, and I'm sure I'll think of your wise words when I'm cultivating for the 3rd or 4th time and could be sitting on the porch with a drink.

I won't be in the cash crop business. To me cash crop seems like a fairy tale. I don't know how anyone makes any cash farming. I grew up on an old-macdonald type farm, we grew up poor, farming with junk and ate most of what we raised and grew.

You know the story, you raise a pig or lamb, or whatever for 6 months, try to keep your costs down and end up selling the animal at auction for about $20 more than you have into it. That's always 6 months well spent!

It's either insanity or determination, but dirt and animals are what I like, so I plan to keep doing it. My plan is till 10 acres of various row crops for animal feed and family food. While I like corn, I only plan to grown an acre or two on an annual basis. Variety and rotation are what I had in mind.

Liberty Link corn looks smart, but I want to get away from buying seed every year. You make some good points. And I had forgotten about the importance of pre emergent attention. Thanks for the post.

Joe

 

[Duffster]

Wolc,

Thanks for the note. Up until now, I've really only planted 1/2 acres of sweet corn from seed catalogs and maybe the same in field corn that my neighbor generously gives me. I want to get away from buying seed every year and go back to saving my own seed corn, which I think means no HT or BT varieties. It's illegal and low production to save HT seed correct?

That said, while non HT production may be lower do you think seed cost savings wash away additional fuel costs required for 3-4x cultivation?

Thanks,

Joe

You don't need a HT variety to use spray with.

You can purchase an open pollinated variety and use the appropriate herbicide, like atrazine, with it. You just won't be able to use products like roundup in crop. You could still use roundup in the preseason for troublesome weeds.

 

[wolc123]

With your relatively small acreage, I dont think you are going to want to get into pre-emergent selective herbicides (like Atrazine), which are prohibitively expensive, usually require a licence to use, and have a carryover effect that must be considered for future crops. One thing I have found success with on sweetcorn is applying roundup with a hand sprayer, taking care to avoid getting any on the leaves. In the old days, I would handle that job with a hoe, but the little hand sprayer is far less tireing of a task and much more effective long-term. For me, the roundup works better than cheap, selective post-emergent herbicides (like 24-d), because it kills grass which gives my corn the most trouble (steals all the nitrogen). It really dont take all that long to apply roundup with a hand sprayer around a half acre or so of sweetcorn. I do it right after I cultivate the second time, when the corn is about a foot high. Just dont do it on a windy day, use some caution, and you usually dont lose much corn. I aso cultivate my sweetcorn at about 6", and later at about 3 ft.

 

[Don87]

With your relatively small acreage, I dont think you are going to want to get into pre-emergent selective herbicides (like Atrazine), which are prohibitively expensive, usually require a licence to use, and have a carryover effect that must be considered for future crops. One thing I have found success with on sweetcorn is applying roundup with a hand sprayer, taking care to avoid getting any on the leaves. In the old days, I would handle that job with a hoe, but the little hand sprayer is far less tireing of a task and much more effective long-term. For me, the roundup works better than cheap, selective post-emergent herbicides (like 24-d), because it kills grass which gives my corn the most trouble (steals all the nitrogen). It really dont take all that long to apply roundup with a hand sprayer around a half acre or so of sweetcorn. I do it right after I cultivate the second time, when the corn is about a foot high. Just dont do it on a windy day, use some caution, and you usually dont lose much corn. I aso cultivate my sweetcorn at about 6", and later at about 3 ft.

I tried to warn my BIL about this.............but he had someone telling him that that round-up wouldn't hurt the sweet corn. He lost 90% of the sweet corn he planted last year.............He admitted over the winter that I was right, and he should have listened. This year he had a fantastic crop of sweet corn.

EDIT: I should also add that he used nothing but fertilizer, and cultivated several times.

 

[Baby Grand]

Wolc,

Thanks for the note. Up until now, I've really only planted 1/2 acres of sweet corn from seed catalogs and maybe the same in field corn that my neighbor generously gives me. I want to get away from buying seed every year and go back to saving my own seed corn, which I think means no HT or BT varieties. It's illegal and low production to save HT seed correct?

That said, while non HT production may be lower do you think seed cost savings wash away additional fuel costs required for 3-4x cultivation?

Thanks,

Joe

I'm interested in doing the same. For me it's not a business proposition. I just want to be able to select seed from plants that do best in my soil/climate/mold&bug population. Since it's not a money making concern, yield isn't an overriding obsession.

 

[Duffster]

I dont think you are going to want to get into pre-emergent selective herbicides (like Atrazine), which are prohibitively expensive

I am curious why you think that atrazine would be prohibitively expensive?

Atrazine is one of the most economical options out there.

 

[Farmwithjunk]

I am curious why you think that atrazine would be prohibitively expensive?

Atrazine is one of the most economical options out there.

As well, there's no problem with residual carry over IF USED CORRECTLY (ie at correct rates and at correct point in growing season) . That's why atrazine has been so popular for so long....

 

[Duffster]

As well, there's no problem with residual carry over IF USED CORRECTLY (ie at correct rates and at correct point in growing season) . That's why atrazine has been so popular for so long....

Good points as well.

 

[Farmwithjunk]

FWJ,

I'm sure you are correct. It'll be inefficient, time consuming, and I'm sure I'll think of your wise words when I'm cultivating for the 3rd or 4th time and could be sitting on the porch with a drink.

I won't be in the cash crop business. To me cash crop seems like a fairy tale. I don't know how anyone makes any cash farming. I grew up on an old-macdonald type farm, we grew up poor, farming with junk and ate most of what we raised and grew.

You know the story, you raise a pig or lamb, or whatever for 6 months, try to keep your costs down and end up selling the animal at auction for about $20 more than you have into it. That's always 6 months well spent!

It's either insanity or determination, but dirt and animals are what I like, so I plan to keep doing it. My plan is till 10 acres of various row crops for animal feed and family food. While I like corn, I only plan to grown an acre or two on an annual basis. Variety and rotation are what I had in mind.

Liberty Link corn looks smart, but I want to get away from buying seed every year. You make some good points. And I had forgotten about the importance of pre emergent attention. Thanks for the post.

Joe

I've looked back through the thread and still don't see a location (where you live) That MIGHT have some influence on my choices to rely strictly on RoundUp or not as a single weed control product. The list of glyphosate tolerant weeds is growing FAST. The problem seems to get worse the further south you go, and the species of weeds becoming tolerant have certain regional boundries. That makes location a key part of strategy. Most of the RoundUp tolerant weeds are results of over use/over reliance and/or improper use (ie spraying @ partial rates that are too low to kill weeds, just "ding" 'em) of RoundUp (or any generic glyphosate products) There is the BEST reason to apply a pre-emergent weed control product. That will knock down the numbers of weeds you have to deal with as the season goes along. Even the ones RoundUp will control have less of an effect if they never germinate in the first place.

Almost all weeds are difficult (at best) to control once they reach a certain level of maturity. Many will resist any efforts to kill them once more than a couple inches tall, without using disproportionately high rates of chemical, which is one of the causes of RoundUp/ect tolerant weeds becoming a problem. NO herbicide, even non restricted use types, should be used at rates beyond labeled direction....For the record, That's the LAW. I don't see the EPA busting down someones front door over improper use of RoundUp in a garden or small food plot, but all the same, I want to use chemicals in a safe, responsible manner. Farmers of all levels are supposed to be stewards of the land, not use any chemicals in a careless or reckless manner.

Timing is EVERYTHING when it comes to weed control. And with the strange weather patterns we've seen in the past few years, you can't always count on being able to get in the field at that exact right moment once the growing season has begun. That's the logic behind getting weeds BEFORE you plant.

Long story short, I'd much rather have a two step approach to dealing with the problem. What one doesn't get, the other has already taken care of.

And a simple little trick to spot spraying w/ ANY weed killer and a pump up tank sprayer.... I take a 2-liter soft drink bottle, cut the bottom off, and stick the nozzle end of the spray wand down in the hole where the cap was removed. Then tape it so the bottle forms sort of a "funnel" over the end of the wand. Then you can set the funnel down over a weed, give it a shot from the sparyer, and not have nearly so much of a chance of wind drift.

Works just dandy in my garden!