Weed Killer Recipes

[PA hayseed]

I just want to add to this thread that when you use "homebrew" recipes, like salt and vinegar you are NOT being environmentally concious or minimizing your impact on your property or animals. Glysophate has far, far less residual effect than salt or vinegar or diesel fuel. In fact, you can replant within days of a glysophate treatment. Other than tracking muddy prints through the house, your animals would see no effect from walking through a sprayed area whatsoever.

The message in this thread that everyone needs to carry away with them is the fellow who plowed salt into his granny's drive and killed the grass another 10 feet either side of the drive. It will be years before that area will grow grass again.

Using glysophate to control active weeds in dormant stands works, but you have to be very careful. I have a fairly new zoysia lawn that had a lot of fescue clumps in it last winter. In early March, while the zoysia was still very brown, I mixed up a tank of glysophate to knock down the fescue. I started out using the gun, but noticed that I was going through a bunch of mix, so on the second half of the lawn, I used the boom. On the half where I used the gun, the zoysia was stunted for weeks -- brown circles everywhere I pulled the trigger. Where I used the boom the fescue and weeds died and the zoysia greened up nice and even and right on schedule.

Morals of the story are, "Dormant is a relative term" and "It takes a lot less glysophate to kill stuff than you think it does."

As a side note, the grass is growing back (well weeds) beside the drive and on the drive. Took about 5.5-7 years, depending on how you want to describe regrowth.

 

[BTI]

I did our gravel tractor lot and all around it with 2% glyphosate mixture.
It took forever to brown up then it all died.
For about a month, now I'm seeing green patches again.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

 

[jeffinsgf]

I did our gravel tractor lot and all around it with 2% glyphosate mixture.
It took forever to brown up then it all died.
For about a month, now I'm seeing green patches again.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Which is an example of glysophate's lack of residual effect. It kills what is green and growing when you put it on. Now that those plants are gone, the weed seeds at the surface of the soil have the resources they need to germinate.

BTI...hit it again, at some point, if you don't disturb the soil, you'll have the majority of the seeds germinated and the weed population will go down.....until some more seeds blow in or get carried in by birds.

 

[BTI]

Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh Ok that makes sense.
I'm a bit slow at times LOL
Ok I'm gonna get some more and give it another shot.

Thanks, BTI

 

[RobJ]

Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh Ok that makes sense.
I'm a bit slow at times LOL
Ok I'm gonna get some more and give it another shot.

Thanks, BTI

You'll probably have the same results. Look for Pramitol.

 

[UpstateSC_Papi]

Visited my local "Feed & Seed" on Tuesday and they suggested a mix of Remedy and 2 4D. I bought it and sprayed Tuesday afternoon. Heading out tomorrow to review progress on our house so I'll see if I have any browning or wilting. Hope so! Briars everywhere!

Michael

 

[redlevel]

Just sort of a heads up: in the Deep South, where common Bermuda grows almost everywhere, now is a good time to spray glyphosphate on any Bermuda you want to get rid of. The 'muda grass is about to go dormant in a few weeks. It depends on storing lots of nutrients in the roots. It is really packing nutrients into the root system now, so your glyphosphate will be especially effective. I heard this from a county agent more than twenty years ago. I have heeded that advice ever since, and have had better results controlling Bermuda that way than any other time of application. I imagine the same would be true of any perenniel grass that goes dormant in the winter. I have about 10 acres I'm going to spot-spray in the next week or two.

 

[yzbdsbp]

Rob J is the Pramitol Supposed to kill the seeds in the dirt also? I have looked at this stuff and it says it keeps the weeds gone for most of all season....Have you used it..is it the best you have found????????? I am looking for the most lasting effect!

 

[J_J]

Let me throw a wrinkle on this...

My Goldens have a 20X50 dog run at the back of the house.

It is graveled (about 3" deep). When it was first put in, all the grass was (supposidly) killed.

That didn't last long.

Now I have grass coming up through the gravel.

There's no way I can kill it now (dogs being dogs, they eat grass constantly), so I just mow it every other weekend.

Weeds are another thing. Is there anything animal safe I could use to kill weeds without hurting the dogs?

I don't know what it is, but dog pee causes some VERY weird weeds to grow LOL

-Larry

The system that I am talking about is totally safe, because it uses steam . If done correctly, it will sterilize the ground killing most things. I read about this device years ago. It is simply a steam generator that is fed by a propane tank, and dragged along the path that you want to kill things. No residual, and relative inexpensive. I will try and describe how the unit looked. It looked like a 3 ft by 4 ft wide deck close to the ground, with a water filled steam tank, and propane for the fuel, on top. Under the deck, there were several rows of tubes with holes where the steam came out. It had a temp gage, and the way it worked, once the steam had built up, you would drive around kinda slow, and the steam came out under the deck and killed grass, weeds, and bugs, and what ever. Living things were killed instantly, and grass and weeds would die soon. This unit was used in an orchard, but I see no reason why a unit like this could not be built and used for lots of things. You could tap off the steam generator with a steam wand, and kill caterpillars, spiders, yellow jackets, fleas, and sterilize dog pens or whatever.

 

[J_J]

In addition to what I said above, the principle would be analogous to you parking your car over grass, with the engine running, and the nest day, you notice a brown spot in the grass. Your hot exhaust was hot enough to kill/burn the grass. So in principle, I believe that this would work