kill grass and weeds permanently

[Oz07]

I had mares tail which is also waxy and roughed it up a bit with my boots before spraying. 

[Jeremy Harris]

3 minutes ago, Oz07 said:

I had mares tail which is also waxy and roughed it up a bit with my boots before spraying. 

 

 

I've been doing battle with this for the past couple of years.  It got established when the plot was still a bare site, and I thought I'd got rid of it by burning it all off with the big gas weed burner I used to clear all the other weeds, before we added fresh topsoil and did the landscaping.  For the area around the trees at the front I covered the ground with heavy duty black weed fabric (the tough, woven, stuff), tightly pegged down and then covered with a layer of bark chippings.  The mare's tail came up through the fabric, and I thought I'd managed to kill it off with repeated treatment of glyphosate, trickled on to the heads so it ran down into all the spiky bits.  Last year the stuff came back, and I repeated the process, and I've just done the same earlier this week.   I rather think I'll be fighting this every year, as it seems to be remarkably resistant to being killed off, with shoots coming up through the weed membrane right across the whole area.

[Oz07]

I did the same with woven fabric, scuffed the plant up and sprayed. Think I may have even used a bit of fairy in the mix one year - probably you who suggested it! I don't know if its a gradual process less infested each year but after around 3 or 4 years spraying it I can't remember getting it the last year. That's not to say I didn't get other weeds though! Is this what you've found it reduces over time?

[Jeremy Harris]

1 minute ago, Oz07 said:

I did the same with woven fabric, scuffed the plant up and sprayed. Think I may have even used a bit of fairy in the mix one year - probably you who suggested it! I don't know if its a gradual process less infested each year but after around 3 or 4 years spraying it I can't remember getting it the last year. That's not to say I didn't get other weeds though! Is this what you've found it reduces over time?

 

 

Looks like we're doing much the same, and having much the same experience!  This is the third time I've treated it, not quite three years of doing it yet.  Maybe this will be the last year I have to do it, and it'll finally keel over.  I can but hope.

[Ferdinand]

Is the mare's tail a case for direct injection into the stem ... like Japanese Knotweed?

[Jeremy Harris]

3 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

Is the mare's tail a case for direct injection into the stem ... like Japanese Knotweed?

 

 

I'm not sure, TBH, it'd be a fiddly job, though, as the stems aren't very thick.  From what I've read, part of the problem seems to be that it has a fair bit of silica in the outer coat of the "leaves", which makes it hard to get enough weedkiller contacting the surface to work well.  The other issue seems to be that it's a very ancient and primitive plant, that's part-fern, part plant, and spreads both from spores and from very deep roots that can cover wide areas, a bit like knotweed.

 

Repeat spraying it is supposed to get rid of it, but pretty much everything I've read suggests that it can take several years of doing this to completely get rid of it.  I'm pretty sure that ours is only propagating from the root system, as it seems unlikely that spores will be able to take hold, given the bark and weed fabric, so the tactic seems to be to keep killing back any new growth until the root system gets too weak to last through another winter.

[SteamyTea]

Many years ago I was at a pub (Red Lion, Marsworth) chatting to a friend.  This woman, who he knew, turned up and started talking to us.  I thought she was a bit pissed as she was slurring her words.  When she got onto talking about ivy and how it was a very ancient plant, and that is why it was hard to kill, I wondered off.

Couple of days later, on Radio 4 (probably GQT), there was, what sounded like a very drunk woman talking about ivy.

She was a world expert.

And she had had a stroke, but may have been pissed as well.

[Ferdinand]

Much of my icy is from next door - some of it growing right through the wall.

 

They have goes at it, and have agreed that I can too.

 

Will try and see.

[scottishjohn]

you lot are really cheering me up 

I got ivy everywhere on walls across the ground -all over 

I was hoping to use a very strong mix of glyphosphate .I know farmers reckon best way for bracken etc is to spray it in sptmember as it starts to take the juice back down into the root -so it takes the weed killer with it ,as ivy don,t really do that -that will not make much difference

[Ferdinand]

2 minutes ago, scottishjohn said:

you lot are really cheering me up 

I got ivy everywhere on walls across the ground -all over 

I was hoping to use a very strong mix of glyphosphate .I know farmers reckon best way for bracken etc is to spray it in sptmember as it starts to take the juice back down into the root -so it takes the weed killer with it ,as ivy don,t really do that -that will not make much difference

 

My parents had acres of ground cover ivy. OK - perhaps half an acre in a 2.5 acre garden.

 

The technique was to lawnmow it, then weedkill the young shoots a few weeks later. It kept it under control.

 

The other way - if it only has a few roots - is to destroy those and leave it to starve.

[Vijay]

3 hours ago, Jeremy Harris said:

 

 

I've been doing battle with this for the past couple of years.  It got established when the plot was still a bare site, and I thought I'd got rid of it by burning it all off with the big gas weed burner I used to clear all the other weeds, before we added fresh topsoil and did the landscaping.  For the area around the trees at the front I covered the ground with heavy duty black weed fabric (the tough, woven, stuff), tightly pegged down and then covered with a layer of bark chippings.  The mare's tail came up through the fabric, and I thought I'd managed to kill it off with repeated treatment of glyphosate, trickled on to the heads so it ran down into all the spiky bits.  Last year the stuff came back, and I repeated the process, and I've just done the same earlier this week.   I rather think I'll be fighting this every year, as it seems to be remarkably resistant to being killed off, with shoots coming up through the weed membrane right across the whole area.

 

I googled mares tail just to see what it looked like, saw this link if it's of any help https://www.hygienesuppliesdirect.com/pearl-super-concentrated-horse-tail-and-mares-tail-weed-killer?capacity=1&variant=262802&gclid=Cj0KCQjwhtT1BRCiARIsAGlY51K_tIYz6h0hM8r6SXJ3SrlvkxtwujNyTVuU2eMk_LXaJlI_ejS9-_QaAvJIEALw_wcB

[Jeremy Harris]

1 minute ago, Vijay said:

 

I googled mares tail just to see what it looked like, saw this link if it's of any help https://www.hygienesuppliesdirect.com/pearl-super-concentrated-horse-tail-and-mares-tail-weed-killer?capacity=1&variant=262802&gclid=Cj0KCQjwhtT1BRCiARIsAGlY51K_tIYz6h0hM8r6SXJ3SrlvkxtwujNyTVuU2eMk_LXaJlI_ejS9-_QaAvJIEALw_wcB

 

 

Thanks, but that just seems to be 160g/l glyphosate.  The stuff I have is Gallup 360, which is 360g/l, so doesn't need to be diluted as much: https://www.hygienesuppliesdirect.com/products/prod251006-gallup-biograde-360-5-litre

[Simplysimon]

16 minutes ago, Vijay said:

 

I googled mares tail just to see what it looked like, saw this link if it's of any help https://www.hygienesuppliesdirect.com/pearl-super-concentrated-horse-tail-and-mares-tail-weed-killer?capacity=1&variant=262802&gclid=Cj0KCQjwhtT1BRCiARIsAGlY51K_tIYz6h0hM8r6SXJ3SrlvkxtwujNyTVuU2eMk_LXaJlI_ejS9-_QaAvJIEALw_wcB

did you see the price?  there is https://www.hygienesuppliesdirect.com/products/prod233662-gallup-490-high-active-5-litres which is stronger and cheaper.

[CC45]

Gallup = roundup.  Top stuff for killing weeds. 5l will do a lot - I seem to recall about a Ha i.e. 10,000m2.  I think I use 30ml in 5litres last time I used it.  Don't leave it in the sprayer, use it all fresh since Roundups effectiveness diminished fairly quickly once mixed up.

[Gone West]

15 hours ago, Oz07 said:

I had mares tail which is also waxy and roughed it up a bit with my boots before spraying. 

Horsetail roots can go down 2m and I dug up horsetail roots that were over a metre long in my front garden. The best way to get rid of the stuff is to dig it up very carefully. If only a very small bit of root is left in the soil it will grow again. In grass I've used Bayer lawn weedkiller which was quite effective but haven't seen it around recently. I've also used SBK and Roundup.

[dimpsy]

This is about the best stuff for mares tail  https://www.progreen.co.uk/kurtail-evo-mares-tail-weed-killer

[Jeremy Harris]

7 minutes ago, dimpsy said:

This is about the best stuff for mares tail  https://www.progreen.co.uk/kurtail-evo-mares-tail-weed-killer

 

 

Seems to be just another very expensive version of glyphosate: https://www.progreen.co.uk/fileuploader/download/download/?d=0&file=custom%2Fupload%2FKurtail_EVO_Safety_Data_Sheet.pdf

 

It annoys me a bit that the marketing deceivers think they can increase profits by selling a standard product with a new name that deceives people into thinking it's something other than it is.  In this case, they are charging £34.79 for 0.5l of glyphosate at a strength of 240g/l, whereas Gallup 360, a general purpose agricultural glyphosate, in more concentrated form (360g/l) is only £30 for 5l, so less than 1/10th of the price.

[jack]

21 minutes ago, Jeremy Harris said:

Seems to be just another very expensive version of glyphosate: https://www.progreen.co.uk/fileuploader/download/download/?d=0&file=custom%2Fupload%2FKurtail_EVO_Safety_Data_Sheet.pdf

 

It annoys me a bit that the marketing deceivers think they can increase profits by selling a standard product with a new name that deceives people into thinking it's something other than it is.  In this case, they are charging £34.79 for 0.5l of glyphosate at a strength of 240g/l, whereas Gallup 360, a general purpose agricultural glyphosate, in more concentrated form (360g/l) is only £30 for 5l, so less than 1/10th of the price.

 

That data sheet says that there's a significant amount of other ingredients beyond glyphosate:

 

 

(By mass, there's actually more of the other active ingredients than gylphosate.)

 

I have no idea whether those additional ingredients warrant the higher price, but on the face of it they don't look like the same product.

[Jeremy Harris]

7 minutes ago, jack said:

 

That data sheet says that there's a significant amount of other ingredients beyond glyphosate:

 

 

(By mass, there's actually more of the other active ingredients than gylphosate.)

 

I have no idea whether those additional ingredients warrant the higher price, but on the face of it they don't look like the same product.

 

The full name of glyphosate is glyphosate isopropylamine, the isopropylammonium salt of glyphosate.

 

 

[jack]

Just now, Jeremy Harris said:

The full name of glyphosate is glyphosate isopropylamine. the isopropylammonium salt of glyphosate.

 

I'm asking out of genuine ignorance: how does that statement relate to:

 

21 minutes ago, jack said:

I have no idea whether those additional ingredients warrant the higher price, but on the face of it they don't look like the same product.

 

[Jeremy Harris]

3 minutes ago, jack said:

 

I'm asking out of genuine ignorance: how does that statement relate to:

 

 

 

There's a reasonable explanation as to why glyphosate is sold as a salt, rather than the acid, in this paragraph lifted from Wikipedia:

 

Quote

Glyphosate is an acid molecule, so it is formulated as a salt for packaging and handling. Various salt formulations include isopropylamine, diammonium, monoammonium, or potassium as the counterion. The active ingredient of the Monsanto herbicides is the isopropylamine salt of glyphosate. Another important ingredient in some formulations is the surfactant polyethoxylated tallow amine. Some brands include more than one salt. Some companies report their product as acid equivalent (ae) of glyphosate acid, or some report it as active ingredient (ai) of glyphosate plus the salt, and others report both. To compare performance of different formulations, knowledge of how the products were formulated is needed. Given that different salts have different weights, the acid equivalent is a more accurate method of expressing and comparing concentrations.

 

[jack]

I'm going to try a third time before I go out in the garden and do something more productive.

 

I'm not sure why you keep answering as though I'm asking why glyphosate is sold as a salt. 

 

I'm asking why a product containing glyphosate IPA salt 27.9 % (w/w)  ***AND THAT ALSO CONTAINS***  32.0 % (w/w) of 2,4-D DMA derivate salts is:

 

1 hour ago, Jeremy Harris said:

a standard product with a new name that deceives people into thinking it's something other than it is

  

Hence why I've twice now said:

 

54 minutes ago, jack said:

I have no idea whether those additional ingredients warrant the higher price, but on the face of it they don't look like the same product.

 

[Ferdinand]

Delighted to say I was already in the garden doing something more useful .

 

That would be sitting in my garden chair in the sun, avoiding doing useful things in the garden - the damn weather has turned to summer and I still have a huge list of jobs that have to be done in spring.

 

(Takes computer off hook and runs away)

Edited May 9, 2020 by Ferdinand

[Jeremy Harris]

2 hours ago, jack said:

I'm going to try a third time before I go out in the garden and do something more productive.

 

I'm not sure why you keep answering as though I'm asking why glyphosate is sold as a salt. 

 

I'm asking why a product containing glyphosate IPA salt 27.9 % (w/w)  ***AND THAT ALSO CONTAINS***  32.0 % (w/w) of 2,4-D DMA derivate salts is:

 

  

Hence why I've twice now said:

 

 

 

 

Sorry, @jack , I genuinely didn't mean to cause offence at all.  At the risk of unwittingly causing more anger, I'll just repeat that it seems that they are just expressing the forms of glyphosate salts in their formulation.

 

The answer is in that quote from Wikipedia, specifically this key bit (perhaps I should have highlighted it to make it clearer, I thought it better to include the whole paragraph to give context):

 

Quote

Some companies report their product as acid equivalent (ae) of glyphosate acid, or some report it as active ingredient (ai) of glyphosate plus the salt, and others report both.

 

This product contains a mixture of glyphosate salts.

 

FWIW, lots of products, including many drugs, are sold as salts, or mixtures of salts, of their active ingredient.  The reasons for doing this are almost always related to stability, storage, ease of handling and packaging and safety when used I think, it doesn't usually change the way the stuff works very much, if at all. 

 

It may be that sometimes the formulation, choice and mix of salts, etc is driven by IPR issues, although I think that many of the patents might have expired by now.  I don't know for sure, but it seems that many companies are now selling glyphosate in various formulations, whereas years ago Roundup was pretty much the only one available, I think (was back when my mother used it on the farm a lot).

[Gone West]

54 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

the damn weather has turned to summer

Don't worry it'll be winter again tomorrow and for the next few days.