permaculture

[Paul Cereghino <paul.cereghino@comcast.net>]

I'd say the tool might be less critical than the strategy.  Frequently 
the flame weeder goal is to maintain a vacant niche where you can't till 
-- a motive that I would take a long hard look at.  Put the flame weeder 
in a context, than see if it isn't 'better' to change the context rather 
then employ the tool.  Haven't looked into cost benefit of large scale 
ag applications, and again you'd have to compare to either other tools 
to achieve the same function, or ways to change context to make the 
function unnecessary.
Paul


Rob Kelly wrote:

> Just last night I was talking with a friend who
> was curious about  "fire weeders" -- propane
> powered contraptions that you use to burn out any
> weed seed.  (You wheel along like a vacuum and
> everything under the hood gets torched.) 
>
> I wondered whether such heat also killed
> beneficials in the soil, or whether those deeper
> in the soil quickly repopulated the top layer
> that was burned.  
>
> Now that I think of burning as a tried and true
> technique, I wonder again whether these fire
> weeders, propane consumption aside, are a pretty
> good idea.
>
> Thoughts on the topic, anyone?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Rob
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