Any cheaper alternatives to Glyphosate

[keat63]

I bought a gallon of Glyphosate about 4 years ago. 150ml makes up 5 litres.
So a gallon goes a long way and will last me about 18-24 months.
So when I first bought it, the cost was £27.
Then 2 years later it had increased to about £36.
Today it's hovering around £80-£90 and i've seen adverts at £100+

There's no way on gods earth I'm paying that much for it, regardless of how far it goes.

Does anyone know of any cheaper alternatives.

[Jungle Jane]

There was a man on This Morning the other day,made weedkiller with vinegar & bicarb of soda mixed in a jug,it fizzes up,then put in a sprayer. I’d test this on a small area first. Some people use a mix of dish soap with vinegar,worth having a look at too. It might need to be used twice but that’s the same as some weed killers. I just hand pull weeds but my gardens not very big.

[Nicos]

I think it depends on where you are wanting to apply it and what specifically you are wanting to kill?

[ameno]

If you want something which will be absorbed by the plants and kill the roots, then no. There are no alternatives, full stop (that normal people are allowed to buy), much less cheaper ones.
If you just want something which will kill the leaves, and thus also completely kill annuals and weaker perennials then there are plenty of other weedkillers on the market now.

[mothhawk]

If you bought a gallon 4 years ago and still need to use it now, what are you trying to kill? Do you have Japanese knotweed?

Hadnt noticed that edited titles don’t show up on the comparisons!

[quanglewangle]

Jungle Jane I can see (neat, strong) vinegar being pretty bad for plants, ie kill them, but not once it's been neutralised with sodium bicarbonate!

[Jungle Jane]

Jungle Jane I can see (neat, strong) vinegar being pretty bad for plants, ie kill them, but not once it's been neutralised with sodium bicarbonate!

It was on TV the other day,I can’t find the clip but this website has the same ingredients but different amounts (this one seems to use more bicarb,the other recipe used just a dessert spoon of bicarb in about a pint of vinegar). This link talks about the salt in the bicarbonate of soda remaining in the soil & needing a couple of good rain days before planting again,to wash away the salt residue.

Vinegar and Baking Soda Weed Killer
A spray made of vinegar and baking soda is a doubly effective method for killing weeds by burning leaves and dehydrating plants through their roots. Use 1 part baking soda to 2 parts vinegar. Pour the baking soda into the spray bottle first, then add the vinegar. After the mixture has stopped bubbling, add a squirt of dish soap to the bottle, screw on the nozzle, and shake it. Thoroughly spray the leaves of your weeds. Again, keep in mind that this potent combination will prevent other, more-desirable plants from growing in that location until the baking soda has washed away.
https://www.hunker.com/13406143/natu...g-soda-vinegar

[keat63]

If you bought a gallon 4 years ago and still need to use it now, what are you trying to kill? Do you have Japanese knotweed?

Hadnt noticed that edited titles don’t show up on the comparisons!

An area with mares tail which i've been battling for years, but generally paths, borders and boundaries.

[keat63]

I'm just trying salt, vinegar and soap,
However,at £2.00 per gallion for vinegar, it's no cheaper than Glyphosate.

Glphosate at a ratio of 150ml per gallon, makes about 33 gallons, so vinegar is roughly the same cost as glypho.

[ameno]

I'm just trying salt, vinegar and soap,
However,at £2.00 per gallion for vinegar, it's no cheaper than Glyphosate..

Never use salt.
It's toxic to all life, not just plants, and will persist in the soil for quite some time, preventing anything else from living or growing there.

Even vinegar is not something which should be used in large quantities. The main thing it breaks down to in the soil is sodium acetate. This, too, will persist in the soil and will not break down further, and although harmless enough in very low concentrations, in higher concentrations will acidify the soil and be toxic to both plants and soil life.

[Jungle Jane]

You might need to use the vinegar weedkiller a couple of times as well. In the border could you put a layer 2” of grass cuttings over the soil surface to stop the weeds? That would be cheaper than all

[quanglewangle]

Sodium acetate, which is what you get if you neutralise acetic acid (vinegar) with sodium bicarbonate, is used as a road de-icer in some places so there is some research on its toxicity to plants.

The quote refers to Ice Shear, a trade name for sodium acetate.

Ice Shear causes minimal toxicity to representative roadside vegetation; herbaceous (e.g., sunflowers, beans, and lettuce) and woody (e.g., pine seedlings) plants. Rather, the deicer at low concentrations (less than 2 g/kg soil) seems to work as a fertilizer, promoting the yield of biomass.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9776775/

Not quite the behaviour you want from a herbicide.

[Mark Rand]

Kurtail Evo is pro-green's replacement for Kurtail horsetail weed killer after ammonium glufosinate lost it's approval .The latter was used in large quantities for dehydrating potato haulms prior to harvest, a minute amount, in comparison was sold for horsetail control.

Kurtail Evo is a mixture of Glyphosate and 2-4-D with an adjuvent. Agri-Gem sell Diamond, which is exactly the same concentrations of Glyphosate and 2-4-D (without the unspecified adjuvent) for less than half the price. They do say that the product will not give an acceptable level of control for horsetail. I shal be giving some of the Diamond a try this week.

[dromia]

New here so hello to all.

I use Rosate currently around £70 x 5lt.

Shipping is the killer at the £15 mark!!

I have just replenished with an order for 2 x 5lt which is around the £67 x 5lt but just the same postage.

[Muddy_Boots]

Good luck if you are trying to kill horsetail or marestail with anything other than the glyco type weed killers, I was battling the stuff for 4 years on my allotments but last year I gave up as it had won. I was told the black roots have been found as deep as 6ft down and I can believe it, they are brittle and are difficult to remove fully unlike Bindweed which have white roots and can be easily spotted.

One of my neighbours at the allotments got some stuff from a farmer mate and had to wear a 'noddy suit' when he sprayed it as its toxic to humans and on a day that was still with no wind. It killed the marestail but he knew after a few years it would start to return as the neighbouring plots would be the source of its return. I wasn't prepared to waste my time and effort and any more money and I can say with confidence I'm in a 'marestail free zone' now as the land I have as an allotment has no sign of it plus my back garden has never seen it either.