Weeds are an eternal headache for a gardener, and even for a simple summer resident. A well-maintained garden and vegetable garden primarily involve minimizing weeds. Here, each grower has his own methods, and there are always a lot of disputes about them
We have collected methods of weed control, which are used by professional agroenthusiasts.
Is it possible to get rid of weeds by hand weeding
Vladimir Busin, founder of a peasant farm in the Krasnodar Territory, practicing biological farming:
— Berries are best protected from weeds in hanging mats. Trapped weeds can be easily harvested by hand. Ground plants are weeded by hand. Manual weeding is also relevant for thorny bushes and berries, which easily crumble, so you need to work carefully.
It is best to weed the rows twice: first pull out the main weeds, and then go through the finishing version, clean up the remaining plants. Cultivation can be applied in the aisle, and in the rows themselves use a milling cutter.
rbc.group Is it worth using chemicals against weeds on the site
Sometimes it is worth using desiccants — drugs that dry, “burn out” grass and weeds. Their effect lasts for a month, a maximum of one and a half. Therefore, if manual labor is unavailable or unacceptable for some reason (there are many beds or there is no purpose to grow an environmentally friendly crop), you can use chemicals.
Vitaly Korolev, founder of the Shuisky Berries eco-farm, supplier of the online aggregator and delivery service of farm products “Eat Rustic”:
— It is important that herbicides have a contact effect that are not dangerous to the soil microflora. When such preparations get on the leaves of weeds, they dry them, the ground part of the weed is killed.
Territories along fences, between greenhouses, where there are no plantings and beds, are quite suitable for the use of herbicides. To get rid of weeds, you will have to treat these areas once a month. But keep in mind that the earth still accumulates chemical elements, they can move in the soil under the influence of rains and irrigation and affect the purity and nutritional qualities of the crop. In addition, these drugs are not cheap. Therefore, away from the beds, it is quite possible to cope with weeds with a lawn mower.
Herbicides cannot be used in greenhouses, because they form their own ecosystem, chemically active substances will harm it, or even completely destroy the crop.
Elena and Vyacheslav Grishin, farmers from the Tula region:
— We do not recommend using herbicides. Weed seeds lie in the soil in layers, multilevel, and it is impossible to remove them forever: another will sprout after one growth. Even if one layer is removed during digging, the loosened earth will raise the next one and the weeds will grow again. There is no soil without weeds.
Does mulching from weeds on the site help
Mulching — the surface covering of the soil with mown grass — prevents the emergence of weeds. Until the grass rotts completely, it will save the crop from unnecessary grasses, blocking the access of light to their seeds lying in the soil.
The mown grass can be different. For example, weeds of cereal plants — chicken millet, wheatgrass — produce spikelets very quickly, and it turns out that their seeds are present in the mown grass, they will aggressively germinate on the land that you, on the contrary, wanted to get rid of excess overgrowth.
Mulching with cereals, and even clover, which can turn into a weed if mowed when it has already bloomed, is not the best option for weed control. It is better to use straw, not hay.
Does sealing crops help to get rid of weeds
Alexander Yunak, a farmer from the Tver region:
— Crop compaction is an ambiguous way to control weeds. You can go without a harvest. Thickened crops, when carrots, beets, cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers — everything grows so thickly that you get a harvest of green mass, not fruits.
The specialists of the Shuisky Berries ecofarm also confirm that the sealing of crops does not work. The same applies to manure: since it contains stones and a huge amount of actual weed seeds, it turns out that it will only worsen the problem.
What kind of coating is used in weed control
In greenhouses, weeds grow tenfold, so the use of agrotankery is justified here. Farmers of Shuisky berries recommend a black agrospan of 90 g /sq. m. It already has holes for planting, and seedlings of vegetables, such as cabbage, cucumbers and zucchini, are planted directly into these holes. This method significantly reduces the growth of weeds, they grow only in holes and are easy to weed. Moisture does not evaporate, the bed is better moistened, drip irrigation is laid under the agrospan. In the case of this method of planting, top dressing must be applied before the agrospan shelter. It is better if these are organo-mineral fertilizers of prolonged action. You can put them in the hole before planting — during the season, such top dressing will work.
There is also a coating made of expensive polypropylene woven fabric. It is used under shrubs and appreciates a long service life — up to seven years, it is more dense (100 g / sq. m.) and in the first year does not let rain moisture through — it will roll off the coating. In this case, the risk of drying out becomes noticeable, it is necessary to provide additional drip irrigation under the agro-fabric. By the way, the soil under it is more caked than uncoated, and requires mandatory digging during autumn-spring work.
Is it possible to get rid of weeds with the help of siderates
Siderates are plants grown for the purpose of subsequent embedding in the soil to improve its structure, enrich it with nitrogen and inhibit weed growth.
Alexander Yunak believes that this is an effective and inexpensive way to kill all the weed for the season in a short time. Mustard and rye give a large green mass in a short time, so they are quite suitable for this purpose. This is additional nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and trace elements for the soil. In addition, a large root mass remains in the ground, which, rotting, leaves pores to raise deep moisture. But keep in mind that the weeds will still come up next year.
Farmers of Shuisky berries confirm that siderates should be planted in order to introduce green fertilizers into the soil. It is believed that one turnover of siderates yields 30-40 tons of organic matter per hectare. Phacelia is recommended (it blooms beautifully), buckwheat (perfectly cleanses the soil), mustard. The siderate is sown densely, it suppresses the growth of weeds. During flowering, the siderates are harvested, plowed — this way it turns out both to destroy weeds and to introduce organic matter into the soil.
By the way, you can enrich the soil with organic materials using peat. Transitional and lowland good peat, as a rule, is not clogged with weed seeds.
If you constantly fight weeds, the perennial ones will go away first, and the main annual mass, such as wheatgrass, requires seasonal work. Seeds remain in the soil for a very long time. Archaeologists are finding 1,000-year-old seeds capable of germinating. For example, creeping wheatgrass, forest yagel (dubnik), field aspen, willow-tea and meadowsweet grow very aggressively. So the work on weed control is multifaceted: choose those methods that are acceptable to you in terms of labor intensity.
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