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Glyphosphate weed kill

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'weeds' aren't really a thing, they're little more than a concept generated by a culturally (or individual neurological) determined & very much non objective bias.

'Weeds' are nothing but memes... generally in our culture, I guess you could say, the perameters of the meme have been set by the subjective bias of a western suburban aesthetic sensability & a tradition of extreme soil cultivation & monocultural production which has been strongly manipulated in recent times by a quite sinister brand of dollar driven corporate agricultural capitalism..

I just prefer to refrain from such determined definitions regarding these plants.

Considering it for a second from an ecologically biased (if I'm gonna be biased at all) point if view rather than the cultural perspective I just mentioned, then in my opinion the facts speak for themselves & its eventually easy to see how our definitions of these plants as bad is based mostly on a lack of understanding regarding the complexities of ecosystemic connection & a desire to not deviate from particular cultural habits.

Traditional western weed-meme monocultural pesticide based agriculture is very well known by now to be a prefoundly detrimental soil depletive process. Ironically the very function that most of these 'weeds' perform in the ecosystem through a plethora of mechanisms & multifaceted connections is the antithesis of this. 'They' in most cases, (along with a vastly complex array of connection & interaction with fungi & micro/macro biology), as their primary function, are literally soil creating & preserving mechanisms (amongst other things). It is what they do. They are fast carbon pathways, utterly central to the development & preservation of healthy soils. When you begin to understand the subtle elegance of these processes it makes more & more sense all the time & it becomes impossible imo to hold on to such obviously culturally defined bias.. its a big paradigm shift I guess..

Everyone has their own personal perspective & they're all individually legitimate.. I just can't help but feel for people though, who are at war with weeds, as it can surly only serve to stress you the hell out to fight such a thing, let alone the aching back from all that work & the accumulating toxicity levels in the body etc

Not to mention that this out dated (imo) attitude is one of the all time largest contributing factors in the utter decimation of our ancient fertile soils & therefore is profoundly affecting our ability to survive into the future.. also, the fact these organic matter rich fertile soils are huge repositories of carbon which as they are degraded contributes to atmospheric carbon levels to a staggering degree is quite disturbing.

Basically this attitude is one of the largest mistakes we are making concerning the biosphere in this age that will be remembered as the age of profound mistakes concerning the biosphere.

Fuck me im delerious, will probably read this back tomorrow & slap my forhead.

Sorry for hijacking.. : p

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like tarenna said, i appreciate and more or less agree with everything you're saying, but in a vague sense your last post seems to imply that people only throw this "weeds" label on things that spring up on farmland, in turfs, garden beds, vegie patches... and it's those situations where what you're saying about soil disturbance, niches of opportunity etc is quite true, and it does make sense to have your property crammed to exploding with plants which you deem acceptable, including some that are known to spring up in situations where people deem them unacceptable.

seeing serious environmental weeds is quite another thing though. or is it? i don't know for sure. lets just remember that not every mans concept of weeds is as petty as clover in his front lawn, there are vines that will carpet riverbanks and kill every tree, there are shrubs and trees that quickly grow into unstoppable thickets, and groundcovers that march into the bush like an army.

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I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with anything g said here. I'm fence sitting a lot of it because you have to take each day as you face it and sometimes ideals just won't work (or fit in with the way we live in the west).

What do you propose is a good use for the potential 100sq meter yard of milk thistles? I already give the ones I pull at my vegie garden to chicken growers etc.

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Thistles accumulate Fe & other nutrients, can't remember which off the top of my head, no time now to look it up.. so their presence en masse often can indicate a deficiency.. that is literally their role in the ecosystem. To correct imbalances.. the right weeds for the right deficiencies are triggered to germinate by the chemical conditions created by those deficiencies.. thistles also gave long tap roots & often indicate areas of deficient compacted soils.. their roots are supurb decompactors.

I agree I would eat it & work on correcting the deficiencies & damage that their presence is indicating.. ironically that is exactly what the weeds are doing there in the first place, they maybe take a little longer to do it in a natural situation, than we would like, but if we understand the indications we can speed it up. Sheet mulching will help, along with a diverse interplanting of tap rooted soil decompacting herbs & verges in your patch & paticular soil amendment that are appropriate for you deficiencies.

Thunder I hear you. I have worked in regen in various forms for 15 years & grew up smack in the middle of a near pristine ecosystem, with agricultural land right next door etc, I've had a fairly long time to study & ponder these things as well as a very long time working directly with 'weeds'. My thinking has totally changed over thus time until now I feel most of the premises that have been taken fir granted in the regen industry are generally misguided.. not all, & it is slowly changing, I've been watching that change & participating in it fir a long time.

The fact is I don't think its much different to what I describe for the simple reason that in all my observations over a long period I've come to realize that in almost every situation these 'invasions' by terrible environmental weeds occurs only as a response to humans having damaged an ecosystem.. these plants take over because they are much more efficient at filling open niches quickly than their native counterparts.

They fact remains that almost always these species are in a class of species which are shirt term, damage control mechanisms who's purpose it is to fill niches quickly, like a scab over a wound.

The problem is only that because we humans are so good at fucking ecosystems, almost every ecosystem within close proximity to us is to some degree broken down & damaged, so its no wonder these species are taking over there.. in an entirely intact healthy ecosystem, these species will rarely even germinate let Alone become a problem, simply because there are no available niches & the germination condition in no way favors pioneer damage healing species.

So in this case, as many, we are falsely villifying these species when its US that is the problem, we are just hell bent in damaging ecosystems & so these damage response mechanisms follow us around like the plague. They're actually fixing our fuckups.. Ipomea or madeira vine or you name it, simply do not 'invade' healthy ecosystems. Most ecosystems in any kind of proximity to human activity are in some way damaged or broken down to the point of many open niches. Again, if there is an open niche, it WILL be filled, if it isn't eventually a process of soul degredation will begin which will further break down that ecosystem.. often having 'weeds' in niches is better than nothing.

That said, I think there is a lit of situations where control of these plants is very necessary. We just need to understand how the system functions to know how to best act otherwise in most cases we will do more damage than we fix..

Its a very complex science.. this work shouldn't be being done by volunteers & council laborers but by the best ecologists among us!

I have a lit more to add but no time..

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Hate typing on my phone ;) hopefully y'all can decifer the typos..

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I, for one, have greatly appreciated the growth or evolution of this thread - when I have more time available I will try offer some deeper contributions - pls don't despair Prioritise...

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Oh there's no despair, and I do enjoy the ideals and discoveries people have made working with "weeds" and incorporating it into their life with joy.

I guess it's just that, If I ever had to talk to someone based on the same problem as the OP, and use a lot of this thread as reference then I'd have eyes glazing over left right and centre. I read each post a few times, I like the ideals, and I even love the relationships between weeds, trees and fungus even more (truly that also blew my mind).

Spray going down first thing tomorrow morning, unfortunately thistles won't provide a whole diet for my family and I have no other use for such plants being on this particular address!

Sorry I didn't mean to keep discussion from continuing, I was mearly redirecting the thread back to it's original grievance.. (I probably shouldn't have as I got my reassurance about this several times throughout the thread).

Peace

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Use a good spraypack not a cheap one if you can...cheap ones make mist not droplets...mist dont usually go where you point it :wink: . Thats solid advice.

Glyphosate will do it as a knockdown....probably wouldn't have been my first chem of choice based on what I can read based on targets(and when I do its tyvek and respirator time)...and I battle a few of them and live in the scrub next to wildernes, and battle in there as well..... as the ones I am hunting in there marched into some ecosystems that have no defenses.

Don't get caught in the "round-up" trap, and if you have to have a third go at the site , change your class of chem or you are heading into trouble territory and resistence is becoming rife. Your soil seed bank is probably fckn massive.....may need to consider a pre-emergent if the site is not a sensitive one (vegie patch/"medicinal" herbs/organic fibre crop ect)

Chem should be your last resort...that said sometimes its the shock and awe first and then follow it up with another strategy.

Fight the fights you can win with the right arsenal.....seriously taking on weeds is a strategy.....very rarely can you hit them once and walk away.

DONT let them fckrs set seed...... and if you could smash em down a bit with a brushcutter/sickle/sythe first if they are up you'll use less chem :wink:

Don't fear the chem....fear the inappropriate application

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Sorry Prioritise man, i just started on ranting about the topic & forgot what the original question was exactly & by whom.. went on a tangent.. to just clarify, my tone & attitude isn't directed at you man.. just trying to point out a general idea.. your thread triggered a rant, it's directed at the internet in general, i now realize why you do, i'm sorry, but i hope you don't take it personally!

I agree with waterboy, don't fear the chem, just the appropriate application.. i've just spent so long seeing people use it inappropriately & usually in the name of helping the ecosystem or some such thing & they very often don't know what they're doing & do more damage than good & expose themselves in extreme ways..

i have a fairly long history with this topic & so tend to just start babbling, i'm sorry i used your thread as a platform for my rants!

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awesome posts paradox!

worth collating into a....Ted Talk?

well, at least a real good hand-out anyway.

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It would be nice to hear more of your thoughts paradox, bit perhaps assume you're now preaching to the converted and get down to the practical concepts, the nitty gritty.

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Its true too many folk are cavalier with chems, like those fckn path weeders with triazine classes in them.

I hate seeing them in peoples trollies at the supermarket.

Weeds wll give you the cues most of the time what the real problem is :wink:

new thread...how to avoid chem use? There is some good wisdom that can be put to good use.

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Ok, I’m in Laos, now that I’m here I am crazy busy but I can probably rant out a post in my spare time.. But I’m not sure how useful anything I have to say might be for prioritise’s current issue, I don’t really have any quick fix answers & it’s kind of hard once you have an established garden, to deal with these issues in the way I mean without a total change of methodology etc. I would also have to speak kind of objectively & as I don’t know what P’s garden actually looks like, much of what I say would rather be how I would approach a garden from the beginning to overcome these issues & not necessarily how P might be able to solve his problems, so in that regard it might be frustrating for him, as he is asking for help about a problem he has right now & is eager to solve the issues he has at the moment & I don’t want to keep distracting from his OP with my ranting, it must be annoying that ive hijacked it somewhat & he just wants some more specific answers..

Like waterboy said maybe I should start a new thread & just compile all my rants there but I’m not gonna do that right now as I don’t have time to do it propertly the way I would like.. so I guess I will just babble out another post & later I can collate these posts into a post for another thread or something? the problem is only that, I don’t feel there is any quick or easy way to explain what I’m talking about, so I may babble on..

...............................................................................................................................................................................................................

Here in Laos it’s actually a really great example of what I’m talking about, there are over 700 species of ‘weeds’ & wild plants (that have so far been recorded by ethnobiologists) that the local people use for food, medicine etc. Without these plants millions of people would literally starve & have basically very little access to medicine.

The people in the local village near where I am are lucky as they still have some good natural forest nearby (the property where I’m working) with a pretty good abundance of wild foods but most people in the lowlands rely almost entirely on the edible weeds (of which there are soooo many that are useful & highly nutritious/medicinal!!!!) that grow around their rice paddies & vegetable gardens & they actively spread the seeds whenever it’s possible..

I was only out yesterday, in the forest & heard some women working, went to see what they were doing, they were collecting bamboo shoots & the aromatic roots of a plant in the ginger family (I’m yet to id) to make soup.. They were also collecting a fat borer grub from the bamboo, very similar to a witchetty.

This was in the forest but the vast majority of people in the lowland rice growing areas don’t have good forests anymore & very much rely on a massive diversity of agricultural weeds. They also use a variety of leguminous trees & shrubs around their paddies for fertilizer the way Prioritise has explained he is doing with Acacia.

Anyway, to the point (kind of) about gardens.. It’s important to realize that weeds don’t just grow for no-reason, there is always a specific soil condition that will trigger the germination of any particular kind of weed. Soil being soil (an infinitely, profoundly, astonishingly more complex living system than most people give it credit for) these conditions can be very diverse in any given area which is why in many areas you will see a very diverse range of different weeds.

The weeds you see growing anywhere are direct indicators of the soil conditions in that area. Many weeds will only grow in areas with very specific deficiencies, particular aerobic/anaerobic, ph, soil density & composition etc; very often these weeds will actually metabolize & accumulate the very nutrients that are deficient, act to stabilize of de-compact & actively affect the soil ph etc. Hence many weeds actually are no less than very elegant & efficient soil improving & direct damage healing mechanisms that play an utterly vital & pivotal role in the development of soils & therefore the eventual development of healthy ecosystems..

Many weeds will only germinate in compact soils, these almost always have deep strong tap roots which bore through the compaction, often they are short term annuals & when they die they leave long channels of composting organic matter which are also cannels for water & nutrient infiltration, all of these things aid in de-compaction, general soil improvement including increased organic matter & nutrient content/diversity.

Many weeds will only germinate in very loose sandy nutrient poor soils & they almost always have dense fine hair net roots which hold the soil together & prevent erosion. These short term plants (fast carbon pathways) also work to increase organic matter & over all improved soil conditions, many also obviously fix nitrogen.

Some plants only germinate after fire where potassium has been depleted & many of these weeds very efficiently accumulate potassium, these responses & process’ are many & varied. You name it, there is a list of plants which will respond to & mitigate any particular condition you can imagine.

They are a direct response mechanism to the physical, chemical, nutrient & biological conditions present in any particular area of soil.

The list goes on & on & there is still a massive amount of work to do in identifying & cataloguing these specific responses & the particular nutrient profiles etc of various plants.

The point I’m getting at here is that when considering a new garden, the weeds that are present (if there are any) on the piece of land you wish to start a new garden on can give you an invaluable indication as to the soil conditions in that area & from the start you can begin the process of amending the deficiencies or compaction issues, whatever may be indicated.. This way you can much more effectively begin the process of improving that soil to the point where most ‘weed’ species simply will not germinate.

You can eliminated the weeds germination condition by balancing the soil to the point of wonderful microbiological diversity & health, where the reparative mechanisms of the weeds are simply not needed & therefore they simply will not, & really cannot germinate. These plants can only thrive in the degraded soil conditions that they have evolved to repair. This is utterly key to this discussion in my opinion.

These many various degraded conditions are the niches that these plants have evolved to fill & as I’ve said a hundred times they have a very specific role in re-balancing & improving these degraded soils to the point where the ecosystem can then move to the next stage of succession & so on until you end up with a high quality advanced mature forest. This is how terrestrial plants have evolved from the beginning, without these subtle process’ & the interrelationships between billions of species (both micro & macro) & these soil adapting successional process’ which lead to very stable advanced ecosystems life as we know it simply could not exist, full stop.

These weeds are the first stage in the successive process which converts shitty arsed soil into soil that is capable of supporting all the successive stages of the developing ecosystem & so on to an advanced thousands or millions of year old ecosystem.

The problem with conventional gardening & farming practices with a focus on monoculture etc of weeding & herbicide application is it is continually degrading the soil, bringing the successional process back to square one, opening up niches, exposing soil to nutrient leeching etc etc etc which is quite simply creating these very degraded soil germination conditions for the whole plethora of these weeds we’re talking about.

The more we improve our soils the less weeds will germinate, that’s the first rule, herbicides generally are very bad for soils & obviously by their very nature don’t promote healthy diversity & therefore soil health, so for this reason I don’t like to use them at all if I can help it..

Sometimes they can be handy though in certain situations but in my opinion that is rare & only with specific types of extremely aggressive plants & extreme situations (or some council just wants to appease some rich residents who are complaining about weeds wink-wink ;)

The problem is, once you start using herbicides along with all the other processes of conventional gardening (very low diversity which forces you to incessantly get rid of weeds, leaving a lot of exposed soil ((open niches & easily degraded/eroded)), using simple non organic NPK ferts instead of diverse inoculants like lots of very healthy compost, worm juice etc) then the process of soil degradation has begun & from thereon out you are going to have to keep using them the more your soil degrades as you are continually promoting the degraded soil germination condition of the soil repair mechanisms, the weeds! That along with using high amounts of synthetic ferts (precisely for the same reason, degraded soil) is a runaway process of depletion of microbiological diversity. All these factors (& more combined) it is no wonder at all that people have such problems with weeds.

So firstly we identify which deficiencies, compaction issues or any number of particular issues that a particular piece of soil may have (using as many various methods as possible.. 'reading' the responses of the weeds that grow there is only one method albeit a very good one if you know what you’re looking at), then we can begin the gardening process with a top dressing of the appropriate trace elements & nutrients etc, then we can sheet mulch like a muthafucker (this is only one method of doing a garden, in some situations it may be more appropriate to use a different method). There is plenty of good info on line about sheet mulching.

My advice would be to not be shy, many people don’t have the desired out come with sheet mulching just because they are too conservative in their layering & thickness etc, you also have to be careful not to go overboard & create conditions that become toxic or anaerobic etc & it’s also important to modify the amendments etc to the particular needs of your site, in general though people are often too conservative, or don’t take into consideration a particularly vigorous weed with a particular growth habit & adjust their methods to suit etc. Using a high quality compost is also important & good quality manures & good mulches etc.

If you have compaction problems you can plants herbs & veges & cover crops etc that are well known to have long tap roots, daikon radishes, red clover etc, spread them around like crazy, all throughout the system, really thick, then as they’re growing you can thin them to eat but always leave quite a few all over the place to sheet mulch over the top of & simply let rot away, the same process as the deep tap rooted weeds that de-compact soils..

It may be important to mention that in a diverse system you will have all kinds of plants with all types of different root systems which colonize all different regions of the soil & crate all kinds of different conditions throughout the soil matrix.. if there are regions of hard compaction then you will obviously ramp up the number of hardy plants with strong deep tap roots in these areas (likewise in sandy loose areas you will favour plants with shallower hairnet roots to hold the soil together etc, you are aiming for a matrix of diversity that is based on the particular needs & conditions of each area of soil, the same way in a natural ecosystem you will observe a matrix of diversity based on the particular conditions throughout the various regions of the soil that is naturally dictated by the germination condition, growing requirements & reparative mechanism of each different species in that area, in the case of a garden such as this we are speeding up that process a lot, by identifying these different conditions & soil regions & deliberately planting out a diversity of appropriate species to fast track this soil conditioning, ‘homogenization’ & general improvement).

Likewise if you have sandy soils pick an assortment of fine hairnet rooted herbs, veg & cover crops to go along with your selected vegetables..

Really, once you have developed & can maintain your gardens micro/macro biological diversity through the development of really good quality humus by making high quality compost, compost teas, soil inoculants like worm juice etc etc & can generally keep niches filled with a diverse range of both plants, maco-invertabrates, micro-invertabrates, bacteria, fangi , birds & lizards etc that will all synergize & help perpetuate this diverse designed ecosystemic process then you shouldn’t have much need for sheet mulching after a while, except perhaps when large sections are opened up & exposed after a large harvest etc even still if you are sure to fill those niches again quickly with the appropriate species & continue to ensure soil diversity & health then this really won’t be an issue most of the time (as long as you have done it fairly properly & don’t have some particularly shitty weed like Cooch Grass or something in huge amounts nearby etc).

Thistles in general are rich in potassium, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium & iron so i hear but apparently areparticularly efficient at accumulating potassium & so can sometimes indicate some level of deficiency which they will actively mitigate as they break down & build the soil but often they also indicate over compacted soils, which is why scotch thistles are so prevalent in over grazed cattle pastures.

As a very general rule an overabundance of sow thistle would personally tell me, as a first stage inquiry, that I may need a bit of potash supplement & a good course of de-compacting root veges, cover crops etc. If I had a big patch of of nothing but a huge crop of sow thistle that I didn’t want I would probably do what I outlined above regarding proper hard arse sheet mulching, with an amendment focused on a little more potash followed by high diversity planting & as I said many hardy deep tap root vegetables, herbs & cover crops.

Seriously though, I gotta get some of my other work done & i'm getting sick of the sound of my own thoughts :P! I will probably start my own thread sometime I guess ;) again, sorry if I’m clogging this thread as I guess these ideas are actually the opposite of the topic right? Ah well..

if anyone is dedicated enough to have actually read this then maybe give me a little bit of time, i will start a new thread & we can have an interesting discussion there.. maybe later tonight i will get around to it!

Edited by paradox
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Hey paradox, great post mate! You've given me some great ideas for new organic "weed" teas. A lot of nice nutrients to be had for free. Thanks for opening my eyes up to this!

Tbh I'm very happy to have your inputs in the thread. I am actually about to undergo a adventure setting up a permaculture garden. I have 5 acres total to work with and your info and knowledge is invaluable to say the least!!

I'm happy to edit my original post with a disclaimer at the front saying the thread evolved into it's current state and we decided to change the thread title. I can leave the original post there too. I just don't see the point making a new thread when you've already poured so much info in here :) what da ya think?

P

Edited by prioritise

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yeah whatever you reckon man, all good with me :)

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Great post Paradox, lots of good info there. If you were to make another thread then I'd certainly read it, it sounds like it would be a great resource for many of us.

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cool, well it's good to know my long winded babble isn't a total waste of time :) i will have a bit of time in the next week or so i reckon so maybe i will try to edit & collate a some of these kind of thoughts, try to make them bit more concise & focused, less repeating myself etc & probably start a new thread..

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Hey Prioritise, i hope your garden is doing ok & one way or another you figured out a good method of dealing with the weeds for the moment!

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so after a bit revision, it seems Iron & Copper deficiencies are often a germination trigger for thistles..

the deficiency could be caused by different things, there may not be an actual deficiency in the soil but rather a ph imbalance that has led to iron & copper being unavailable.. a low ph could be caused by compacted airless conditions in the soil or other things.. But it's hard to say as iron does have quite a wide range of ph availability & copper seems to be available down to a fairly low ph too so who knows..

Edited by paradox

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Hey paradox, yep on top of it after a full days pulling, layering newspaper by the boxful and re mulching. Sprayed around the edged but I think it's all good now... Just gotta start a routine to keep on top! Neighbours have settled down there yards too.

Interesting post mate, the land was heavily compacted prior to this problem!

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