Market Farming

[Marcie Rosenzweig <fullcircle AT jps.net>]

Shirley,

For your market farm area, mechanical control - hoeing, flaming -  at the
two-leaf stage should, over time control knapweed locally.  The good news
is that it reproduces only by seed.  The bad news is the seed is very
attractive to song birds who spred it around.

Ron Lang of the Forest Science Lab at the University of Montana, Bozeman,
works on natural preditors to knapweeds.  Don't remember catching where
exactly your ranch is.
A good website for this and all biocontrols is Cornell's biocontrol site.
The specific page for weedeaters is
http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/ent/biocontrol/weedfeeders/wdfdrtoc.html

I took a peek and it lists 13 different biocontrols for diffuse knapweed,
many of whom have been released on trial sites in the West.  You might want
to hook up with Lang.  I participated in a beetle release as biocontrol for
Western Star Thistle, another particularly noxious weed here in the West.
My property was chosen precisely because I was na organic grower and they
wanted the bug to be able to multiply without the threat of pesticides.

Marcie A. Rosenzweig
Full Circle Organic Farm
Auburn, CA