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  • From: STEVE GILMAN <stevegilman AT verizon.net>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Quack grass
  • Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:22:13 -0500

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






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