Alternative Weed Killer.

[Two_Sheds]

I've heard about vinegar but I would be worried about changing the PH of the soil..

You would have to use gallons & gallons to change the basic Ph of your soil


vinegar kills the topgrowth (leaves) of weeds, but not the roots, so you might as well just pull them up

[libbyloulou]

Agree with the use of vinegar would need gallons to make a difference.
If vinegar kills the top growth, then death of the roots should follow ?, within a few uses of vinegar ?.

[Kristen]

If vinegar kills the top growth, then death of the roots should follow ?

Sadly Weeds are Weeds for the very reason of their perniciousness Annual weeds will be killed by knocking the tops off them, but pernicious weeds will come back from any scrap of root that is not, itself, killed / removed. It will be weakened by multiple treatments, but give it a week of sunlight and it will have restored enough strength to come-again. The old saying, relating to hoeing of weeds, is "Never let it see a Sunday" ... you'd have to do the same with Vinegar I reckon

[starloc]

Things like vinegar dont realy work the plant nearly always comes back......weeds are weeds because they are good at staying alive! , so unless you use an evil.... (should be banned ) product such as one based on glyphosphate there is no point using weedkiller, glyphosphate should be called planet/human/animal/rhubarb.... killer many scientists have tested it and said it doesnt break down in the soil as it kills everything around it and even enters the human body attacking good bacteria....., Apparently rhubarb cant grow in roundup treated soil for some time....so there is something there even some distance from were the roundup was applied....so it doesnt sound like its breaking down harmlessly

Pull up anything thats not wanted or turn the soil over burying the weeds , dumping 6 inch of straw ontop is suposed to work as well (trying straw this year )

a pile of weeds ontop does strangely seem to work , I have scythed the garden in some areas before the plants seeded and left it all down on the floor, nothing grows through a compost heap over the floor.... for 2 years now, just a smelly compost heap a few inch deep

Course corn meal dehydrates seeds as they start to sprout and kills them, some say it doesnt work but I tried and it killed 99% of germinating seeds on a few sq meters of garden with it, cornmeal is also a great fertiliser

[Kristen]

many scientists have tested it and said it doesnt break down in the soil as it kills everything around it and even enters the human body attacking good bacteria

I see people saying this from time to time, and I also see links to Rant Sites, but I have never seen a link to proper peer-reviewed science that has such findings, excepting perhaps things like Rats being fed a dose thousands of times higher than actually exists in the real world.

My understanding is that, insofar as there is a problem, its not the Glyphosate but rather the adjuvants that help it stick to the plant, translocate through the leaf cuticle, and so on, which are more toxic. latest formulations of Roundup (i.e. specifically the product by Monsanto) use adjuvants that are not toxic, so love or hate Monsanto if using a Glyphosate-based weedkiller it may be better to use their New & Improved products.

If you have some links to science, i.e. peer reviewed, that supports your view I'd be very pleased to see it, as I am always concerned that such products can be more harmful than the company's marketing department would have me believe!

[starloc]

I manufacture chemicals and as such need to register each one, as part of the registration if something is absorbed into the body that affects its natural workings it needs to be marked as such and is classified as a substance of high concern

Glyphospate is apparently registered as safe....it states it can not enter or affect the human body or accumuate in it, self registered by the manufacturers using there test information

If it is safe......why have monsanto just patented it as being able to work as a antibiotic after being absorbed into the human body killing almost any bacteria in the human body, and someone from Liverpool university/hospital has just discovered it is treatment for black bone disease.....it doesnt sound like it has no affect on the human body?

It does not meet the regulations of safe under the same restrictions anyone in Europe needs to meet.....I think they can make it here under a USA registration ( but not sure on that one ), but being made in the USA under the new trade regulations they dont have to prove its safety....only European companies do!, USA products can be imported as registered as safe as nobody has proved they are unsafe and no need to have it tested in the same way

Registered under the same legislation a product can be....registered in 2 ways....

EEC registered chemicals proved/tested to be what they say and proved to be labeled correctly
Imported from USA, the manufacturers say ( guess....) its safe and done correctly so thats ok...

It doesnt work the other was though....we need ours registered in Europe to sell over there

[Martin H]

Glyphospate is apparently registered as safe....it states it can not enter or affect the human body or accumuate in it, self registered by the manufacturers using there test information

If it is safe......why have monsanto just patented it as being able to work as a antibiotic after being absorbed into the human body killing almost any bacteria in the human body

Good question! This was new to me, but I found the patent (filed in 2003): Patent US7771736 - Glyphosate formulations and their use for the inhibition of 5 ... - Google Patents. Monsanto are saying that it could potentially work against any pathogen containing the shikimate pathway, "an ancient pathway that is involved in primary and secondary metabolism and is found in all prokaryotes, many lower eukaryotes, and plants, but not in mammals".

This would explain the apparent contradiction that glyphosate cannot affect the human body but that it could work as an antibiotic and anti-parasite treatment. Of course, killing off your gut bacteria isn't great, but could still be better than dying from malaria.

[Laney]

Homemade weedkiller which also conditions the soil sounded great, (loved the eyeball post! ) so having read this thread I've googled it to consider starting a bin.

But blimey, that EM Bokashi powder looks expensive considering you have to use a fair amount of it?

Also, and I know you could do these things to death, but I bet it takes a fair amount of manufacturing to create the special powder in the first place.

Hmm I'm honestly surprised I read so many posts about bokashi bins, I'd have thought it would be a dead duck?