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  • From: John Hendrickson <jhendric AT wisc.edu>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Williams cultivator, basket weeders
  • Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2006 19:48:06 -0500

Thanks Paul, that pretty much confirms what I was thinking: basket weeder plus a tine weeder. I am also hoping to find a belly-mounted cultivator for my Allis B for miscellaneous one-row cultivating jobs. What is your opinion (and others can certainly chime in) on bed shapers? Do they make a big difference or are they unnecessary? I've been cautiously considering the Lesche bed shaper offered by Market Farming implement. -John

-re cultivators for roots and alliums: if you have relatively stone free soil, the combo of a basket weeder and a tine weeder (Lely or Williams both work in my experience, there are other out there (Einbock is one) I haven't tried) is hard to beat. Use the basket weeder to weed very small seedlings and newly transplanted plants. Once the crop is a bit larger or transplants have rooted (ie. they survive the tug test!!!) use tine weeder. Usually a fair bit of hoeing and rogueing is requried as well. One great use for a basket weeder is to prepare a stale seedbed--let weeds germ (but not get to first true leaf stage) and then till top half inch to kill weeds, repeat 1 to 2X more after rain or irrigation and you will kill 95% of weeds before you even plant. THis works best in late spring to late summer when enough heat and moisture are present to kill the summer annuals (pigweed, crabgrass, lambsquarters, etc) that are our biggest headache. Once you get a basket weeder system going it should replace wheel hoe work you are currently doing, and yoiu will be very happy with the speed and precision of this tool. I have 2 basket weeders, one with all baskets pushed togehtert permanenly mounted on an IH 140, and one 3 row basket weeder on AC G. I have another G for seeders, hillers, and finger weedres. I got a thing for old cultivating tractors. They are cheap, and were the state of the art for killing weeeds without chemicals before the world discovered better living through chemistry. Still great machines. And very cool and fun.

John Hendrickson
Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems
University of Wisconsin-Madison
1535 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706
608-265-3704
www.cias.wisc.edu



  • Re: [Market-farming] Williams cultivator, basket weeders, John Hendrickson, 08/03/2006

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