Weed Management for Organic Farmers, Growers and Smallholders: A Complete Guide [Paperback]

 

 

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Visitors to our vegetable plot this season often remark about how clean the crops look, and my reply is, " you are right, you won't find any weeds here mate ", which of course is not strictly true. It does however show that after 21 years of growing here at Longmeadow we have learnt how to keep on top of the little blighters before they start to affect the crops and set seed. Our weed tolerance is low, but after years of looking at other people's organic vegetable holdings, I have noted that everybody seems to have a different level of tolerance. This is not only due to the grower's perennial problem of lack of time during the main growing season to keep on top of everything. Lack of experience, particularly when starting out is another major factor, and this book has a lot of very useful information to help with this. If only it was around when Patsy and I started out! It must be said that like many things, there is no substitute for hands-on experience in the field.

After the introduction that addresses the principles of weed management on organic farms, the next chapter covers ways in which farmers and growers can prevent weed problems arising through crop planning and rotations. It give a whole range of options, examples being, fertility building leys, break crops, cover crops, living mulches, intercropping, under sowing and fallowing. Seed rates, crop spacing, primary, secondry and tertiary tillage are also discussed. Quite a lengthy chapter follows on direct weed control, with all the latest information on the never-ending variety of mechanical and flame weeders, although I think that there could have been more coverage of the latter. This of course begs the question whether any book covering such a wide range of subjects can go into sufficient detail on all the topics. I think not, so keep sending those articles into the OGA journal!

The economics of weed management follows this, the information given being particularly useful for larger growers and farmers. I must add that we have never lost or given up on a crop because of the effort and cost of weeding it , although we are relatively small growers. There is a short bit on the environmental cost and carbon foot print of weeding, (again this needs covering in greater depth), one of the examples given is the energy use in flame weeding and inter-row work in carrots that uses twice the MJ/ha that conventional herbicide treatment uses! On the other hand this ratio is reversed for farmers comb weeding winter wheat compared to conventional spraying.

The chapter, by far the longest in the book, describing the weeds in their different categories in some detail, for me was the most fascinating. For instance, the fact that, a single plant one of our two most prominent weeds, Prickly Sow-Thistle, (the other being Groundsel), can shed between 20 and 60000 seeds that can emerge from March to November. This makes me break out into a cold sweat, and coupled with the fact that it is such a bastard to get out the ground once rooted, you can appreciate just what we are all up against! With groundsel, the book rightly points out as I have found from experience, that after the two leaf stage, the seedlings are tolerant of flame weeding.

The book ends with specific weed management strategies for different systems and crops and for growers the main field vegetable crops are covered. In conclusion I would like to say, given the subject matter, how readable, well laid out and succinct the book is. Highly recommended.

This book is really a must for anyone studying Organic Farming. It has been well written and has been a great help to me this year. Well worth the money. The book goes into great detail regarding the weed problems faced by organic farmers. Good identification of the weeds in Britains landscape and how they can be problematic to farmers.

I read a lot of text books on subjects like soil science and even if they are quite heavy going I manage to read them cover to cover. However, I have had this book ages and only got part way through. I had not found it particulary useful (I am a smallholder with horses and want to control our weeds as naturally as possible) and have little incentive to finish it. I can normally remember at least one thing I liked about any book that I have read but nothing springs to mind from this.

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