Marestail/horsetail advice please

[JaniceH]

Hi all
I need some advice on how to get rid of Marestail please. When I took over my plot in February it was a complete junk yard and was a mass of couch grass, my next door neighbour has said my plot hadn't been looked after for at least 5-6 years. See here: http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...eks_90364.html

However, it has become clear that the real problem isn't couch grass at all, it's Marestail and I'm really stuck as to how to get rid. It wasn't active in February so I didn't see any then. Below the thick woodchip paths is very heavy duty woven weed suppressant and it is coming up through there too. The four beds I'm using for rotation don't have weed membrane in the bottom due to root veggies and potatoes needing the depth and its throughout the beds. My allotment association had a competition two weeks ago and that needed three of us just on Marestail picking just to keep the beds clear for the comp.

I have been snapping it off at just below ground level and removing all the bits as I don't want to spread it about, but within a few days, it's a couple of inches tall again. It takes me about 3-4 hours to remove it all, every single week! I never let it get taller than about 6inches though. I know the rhizomes travel extremely deep so digging isn't an option. I'm not actually getting many annual weeds, just this awful stuff which I can't hoe. I have tried crushing it and spraying individual bits with Roundup (tough and deep root) spray but it just shrugs it off and doesn't even go brown.

How on earth do I kill this waxy leaved prehistoric dinosaur of a plant that is throughout my plot without wrecking my crops or my back through hand weeding every single one.
My allotment manager says he has something that he has a licence? for, but it's got to wait until all my crops have gone. I've got winter brassicas so not sure how that's going to work.

Help!

[lottie dolly]

Those of us that have just learn to live with it,there are products on the market claim to kill it,but it does come back next year about April time,it first puts up long stems with little mushroom like heads full of dust/seed/spores,all you can do is,now you are aware of it,keep hoeing it off as it comes up next year,no good expecting raised beds to help either,the darn stuff just keeps going up until it finds daylight,my plots are covered in it,what you can do is,after pulling it up,put it in a barrel of water till next year,by heaven it will stink,but is a good feed for plants diluted to a week tea look,also has been said on here about it being good to help prevent blight when sprayed regularly onto the spudz/tomato foliage,a few years ago i thought it helped keep some pests off when sprayed on,repeat after rain,i think it must have been the stench of the mix,sorry cannot give you any better advice,also it's correct name is horse tail,mares tail grows in water

[Kirk]

From what is said I suspect it is going to be chemical warfare. You have to get at the roots for this stuff and even digging can simply make more bits of broken root so more of it a bit later. In effect digging and weeding makes an immediate effect but not a permanent one.

Concerning the wrecking of the present crops that depends on their location with respect to any marestail. If the two are mixed up then not a lot I can think of. If they are seperated by a bit of ground then perhaps use a weed killer via a sprayer nozzle held close top the ground to get the weeds and cause no overspray on to the crops.

I would half suggest trying to spray part of the plot now to kill off what is in that bit. That way you may have a clear section for next year. Then you plant in the clear section next year and murder the stuff in the other section. Basically cannot see you saving crops and clearing it out in one year, by the time the crops are up the stuff will likely be entering it's dormant stage.

No idea what your site manager can get so if you want to wait for their input with whatever you just have to wait.

Personally I would section off a short length say feet - length of wood across the plot - then strim it a bit, then spray with a strong glyphosate mix (2x), a week after give it another spray and a week after that the same. Not sure if I have read of people adding a bit of washing up liquid to the solution to aid in "wetting" the leaf surface.

If that doesn't knock it back then it will be whatever the site manager has. My concern there is that usually anything has to be applied when the plant is growing, so autumn warfare may not be as effective as you may hope for.

I assume this is "common" problem where you are as your site manager has something that sounds pretty unfriendly conveniently at hand. Meaning "Another person requires that stuff for marestail/horsetail."

[Bill Door]

I have read somewhere that hoeing and building up the fertility of the soil (loads of manure and compost) make conditions bad for horse tail.

I have never had horse tail so cannot confirm this. I have heard any say that it is the very devil to get rid of.

Best of luck

Bill

[Alison]

I have it and to be honest there are much worse weeds. As it's so deep rooted it doesn't compete with your crops and doesn't choak them like the bind weed I also have. I just pull it up with as much root as I can on a regular basis and don't let it worry me. I'd also be very concerned about using the stuff your site manager is pushing, make sure you know what it is before even thinking about using it. Personally, one if the reasons I grow is to improve my diet with fresh and naturally grown food. The sort of chemicals that would be needed to kill this off aren't things I'd want anywhere near anything I'd put in my body.

[cariann88]

You can either boil horse tail and make a liquid to prevent blight.

Or you can crush it and try and use weed killer and cover it up and forget all about it until next year.

My plot is covered in it.

[Martin H]

Like any other plant it needs light to survive, so the more you can keep chopping off the tops the weaker it will get.

As others have said, it doesn't interfere all that much with your growing, it's just an unsightly nuisance.

Good luck!

[sparrow100]

What you said about using stuff that needs a licence would personally have me a bit worried. I'm guessing it's Kurtail and that is really nasty stuff. I have horsetail and pull it up regularly, but by the sounds of it I have far less than you. The plot one over from mine is over-run with the stuff and I really feel for them trying to stay on top of it.

I *ahem* tripped and dropped some ammonium sulphamate on the path-occupying horsetail on my way to a compost bin earlier in and it's not surfaced again. Neither has anything else that was growing in the path. My compost's pretty lovely too.

[Vince G]

Kurtail Gold by Progreen gets rid of 90% of it, but it's very expensive. Even with this stuff, if you get rid of it in one place you can be sure it will probably pop up elsewhere as the plot is probably infested. It is a very very long battle, even with Kurtail Gold. My ecotoxicologist friend says KG is mildly hazardous to aquatic life so don't use it near ponds, streams etc, but he says it's fine on soil as it neutralises on contact with soil.

Alternatively, if you don't fancy chemical warfare, keep pulling it up, digging out as much of the attached root as you possibly can. This weakens it but you'll never ever totally get rid of it.

[Mr Bones]

Horsetail also likes acidic, poorly drained conditions so you could go at it from that direction too. Sounds awful, I think it'd drive me nuts.

[Speed Gardener]

To support what Mr Bones says,
The now-retired parks and Leisure manager at my local council used to say that the addition of a good quantity of lime made a real difference to the amount of horsetail growing in the municipal beds, especially in places you couldn't keep weeding all the time. Not sure what the best time of year for doing this is, but it might save you a lot of weeding!

[bearded bloke]

Kurtail or Clinicace will give it a nasty headache, if you can live with it a bit longer, let it grow to about 4" tall & then pull it out with as much root attached as possible, leaving it a bit longer will weaken the root system more than frequent small growth removal. Works on the same system as letting bindweed grow to 8 leaves before pulling up, the root uses large amounts of energy to grow the first 8 leaves & after 10 leaves absorbs more energy than it expends to grow further.

[MissC]

I have lots of it on my plot, which I took over in March. I covererd all the beds in a thick layer of newspaper before filling them with a mix of compost/manure. Expensive but really, really helped. The mare's tail has almost gone from the beds (for now, at least!) I'm still battling it on the paths but I'm slowly covering them all with newspaper then weed suppressant. The mare's tail seems to have 'moved' over to my neighbour's very overgrown plot now though... He said he didn't have much of it until this year. Oops!

[Dave1975]

This is a major problem for me too. In other threads white vinegar has been mentioned I recall. Not sure if there is any confirmation this works but even if it does, can't see it being viable to use in areas growing crops due to the nature of vinegar.

Another suggestion I've seen mentioned a lot (probably mentioned in most threads) is to simply keep chopping the tops off once of a certain size, the idea being the plant will weaken and eventually exhaust it's energy and die?.

But this is all new to me as only had my plot 3 months and trying to learn by my mistakes and as I go.

[MarkPelican]

I had a lot of marestail on my allotment when I took it on 8 years ago. The soil quality was also awful. Over the years, I have put in lots of compost and dug the beds through taking out any roots I find. I now have little or no marestail. Its the only solution I know of.

The marestail had little impact upon the crops grown whilst I was doing it.