Selective weed killer or no?

Hi


From a previous thread we have a spare 5 acre field we want to turn into meadow. It's currently a field that is topped regularly but has "weeds". Including buttercups, daisies, thistles, nettles and dandelions and a few wild flowers.

It looks fabulous as it is but I'd like to encourage more wild flower diversity and density. I'd also like to ensure predatory plants like nettles, docks and don't take over.

Any tips on how to manage it? I don't really want to apply a selective weed killer like longbow as it takes out the daisies and buttercups as well. At the moment all I can think of is get the roundup and knapsack on and spot each individual nettle, dock, and dandelion. Which will take forever.

Suggestions appreciated!

Thanks.

 

Won't the buttercups take over (if you get rid of the other rivals)?

Dunno if it is an option but:

Return to just-grass with selective weedkiller
Seed the mix of wild flowers that you want

or is that barking-nuts??

 

Kirsten,


I think that's a sensible idea - but I spoke to seed merchant today and they said wild flowers won't take in a grassy field as they will get out competed.

But you have sparked a thought. If we do what you say, then just spray off random lots of small patches with roundup then I can overseed those with meadow mix seeds. That might be a fair plan. Does that make sense you reckon?

 

Get in contact with your local group for info http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/

 

Sounds like its already about what you're aiming for. Nettles are the food plant of several butterflies as I understand it, and while I can't claim to understand why, I'm told that they attract ladybirds, which you'll want in there as natural aphid control.

Obviously you don't want them to take over, but they wont if the ground is starved. Nettles are shallow roots and nitrogen hungry.

Docks are a different story, having massive tap roots, they don't care at all about the soil, because they'll just go down as far as necessary to find nutrients. Maybe paint them with glyphosate, and certainly prevent them setting seed.

 

They are trying to create a wild flower meadow in my local park.
They appear to be doing as you have planned.

They cut back the turf in small areas, some quite large, and sow wild flower seed.
I'm guessing the intention is, over a period of time these will creep into the grassy areas, and the grass will creep back into the seeded areas.

I also think you need to cut off everything in Autumn and remove it, to slowly drain the soil fertility.

 

Not entirely relevant here I guess, but the cheapest way I've read of to make a wildflower meadow is to buy a bale of hay that came from established meadow, and then just kick it about. The idea being that there's be enough wildflower seeds in there to establish it, but personally I'd be very sceptical about that.

The next way I read of is to establish a small area, allow livestock to graze it for a few days in autumn, before moving them onto the rest of the land, where the undigested seeds will be poo'ed out and distributed.

 

I don't know anything about wildflower meadows, but there is an amazing wildflower meadow at East Ruston Old Vicarage and they put an inordinate (so it seems to me!) amount of effort into re-seeding species that have not fared well to re-establish the balance.

Worth trying seeding some "cleared areas", but I don't think its as simple as it seems ... bit like anything I suppose

 

I like the idea but not keen on chucking Roundup all over the place. The nasty ingredients dont break down as they say, it's a lot of marketing hype really. Apparantly only 2% breaks down in 28 days and in turn will fill the land with lots of nasty stuff that can kill earthworms and other good organisms.

Might be worth thinking on.

 

There is no evidence for this (apart from aquatic creatures). Lots of hype on the internet, but that's easy to write. If you have a link to an article which cites some peer reviewed scientific papers I'd love to see it please, otherwise I will continue to believe that this is just hype - presumably originally generated by people with some other agenda.

 

I'll see what I can do...

 

Thanks. You never know with these things, and there is definitely scope for Large Mega Corp to Lobby governments and supress scientific funding ... the Tobacco companies did that for a long time, after all ... so it would be helpful to find anything (genuine!) that is out there.

 

I also would like to now the truth, what ever is truth nowerdays

 

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/tx1001749


This is also a good read:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=weed-whacking-herbicide-p

Obviously these are just words on a screen so take what you will, it's enough to put me off. But still in too minds really.

The glyphosate seems to be pretty harmless on its own (it's not even a herbicide apparantly) but its the adjuvants(sp?) that break the cell walls of plants that are the nasty bits.

I hope this sheds some light on the issue, probably a good idea to do a bit of research on Monsanto too. Tin-foil hats at the ready!