[Market-farming] Quack grass
STEVE GILMAN
stevegilman at verizon.net
Thu Feb 19 14:22:13 EST 2009
Controlling quackgrass
This is from an ecologically-based weed management workshop that is
based on a draft of a manual that is slated to be published in late
2009 by SAN, the Sustainable Agriculture Network. its working title
is “Manage Weeds on Your Farm: A Guide to Ecological Strategies” by
Dr Charles Mohler and co-authored with Toni DiTommaso at Cornell
University.
Perennial weeds that propagate vegetatively may persist for years
because they have buds on their roots or underground stems that
sprout when the plant is damaged. The rhizomes of wandering
perennials such as quackgrass are simply thickened stems that store
nutrients horizontally underground, although they look more like
roots than stems.
Roots and rhizomes form buds at regular intervals that remain dormant
due to hormones that are released from the growing tip of the
underground stems. As the distance between the buds and the growing
tip grows longer, the hormone concentration diminishes so that the
previously suppressed buds sprout and become a new above-ground shoot.
As anyone who has tried to tackle an area of quackgrass knows –
initial tillage a good way to rapidly increase the number of shoots
and thereby spread the plant. That’s because the cutting up of the
roots and rhizomes by tillage releases the buds from their hormonal
suppression, causing them to sprout.
But the sprouts have less nutrient reserves to draw upon from the
segmented underground stems, and their growth is less vigorous. And
this is the key to the control of wandering perennials. The ideal
point to impact the plant is when the new emerging shoot has used up
most of the reserves of the original rhizome fragment – and before
the shoot forms new storage roots or rhizomes.
With quack grass the minimum size when the rhizome segment is at its
weakest is usually reached when the shoot has formed three leaves –
and that’s the key time for another round of tillage to finally kill
the plant.
Hope this is helpful…
Steve Gilman
Ruckytucks Farm
On Feb 19, 2009, at 1:21 PM, market-farming-request at lists.ibiblio.org
wrote:
> Message: 4
> Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 12:40:38 -0500
> From: Pat Meadows <pat at meadows.pair.com>
> Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Quack Grass
> To: Market Farming <market-farming at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Message-ID: <u66rp4ho38tqo05gqgjv9vto2ntqh0sh4f at 4ax.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> On Sun, 15 Feb 2009 09:07:18 -0500, you wrote:
>
>> Once a week for the past two months I have been digging quack
>> grass roots
>> out of my green house but this weed just keeps coming back. Can
>> anyone tell
>> me how to get rid of quack grass.
>>
>
> Sigh. It's not easy. It is terrible stuff. We have it too. It's
> part of
> the reason (not the whole reason, but a good part of it) why I'm
> gardening
> mostly in Self-Watering Containers now.
>
> I suppose Roundup would work if I could bring myself to use it.
> Our place
> is only about 50 feet from a creek and we're uphill from the creek. I
> don't know what Roundup would do to the life in the creek. I don't
> think
> it would help it, however.
>
> Pat
> --
> In Pennsylvania's Northern Tier, northeastern USA.
> Website: www.meadows.pair.com/articleindex.html
>
> What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide
> what kind of difference you want to make. - Jane Goodall
>
More information about the Market-farming
mailing list