Selective weedkiller idea... sane or silly?

[SH]

Hi, I have a lot of broadleaved dandelions on a lawn.

I have wondered about mixing glyphosate with something sticky like syrup and then using a small paint brush to paint onto the leaves of the dandelions. The hope is that noen of the grass around the dandelion will be affected.

Sane or silly?

(i have tried other selective weedkillers like SBK. The first year it worked and clearned the whole lawn, but this year does not seem to have worked.....)

[Andy Burns]

You can get "weed wipers" for applying glyphosate, but the ones I see are about the size for Dock leaves, not Dandelions.

I think I've also seen clear cones, with the spray nozzle at the top, so you place it over the weed, and the spray is contained within the cone.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Glyphosate kills too much. The reason the selective weedkillers haven't worked is lack of rain

[Brian Gaff]

You at one time used to be able to get a kind of gel for this, but I think it turned out to be such painstaking work that nobody bought it. There is also that gadget on a pole that is supposed to remove such weeds by simply inserting it over the plant, letting it close and pull the whole lot up. We don't see that these days, probably because it either left holes all over the lawn or simply did not work. Have you noticed that since you started to mow grass all the grow low and flower below the blades of the mower. Natural selection at work, I suspect immunity to certain chemicals is the same. The problem with dandelions is that they go to seed very suddenly once pollinated and by morning all the seed is everywhere. Brian

[Martin Brown]

Then spray it with a selective broad leaf weedkiller like Verdone - these days called rather stupidly Weedol for Lawns.

For small numbers of big dandelions I find a 12" screwdriver prives a most satisfactory way of levering them out of the ground with a satisfying length of tap root. They don't often come back up.

There is a wax or gel based spot weeder formulation of Glyphosate and Verdone that can be used for spot weeding but it is insanely priced.

If you have a lot of them then a sprayer is much easier on the back.

You can do that or easier put it in a bottle with a thick candle wick. Those used for dispensing BBQ sauce are about right for the job.

Remember that glyphosate kills anything green that it touches and grass is exquisitely sensitive to it so that anywhere you treat and step onto you will kill the grass where you next put your foot down and for several steps. People who are careless and overspray their own boots leave outline dead grass prints in the lawn as they walk back across it.

Amusing enough if it isn't your lawn that they have messed up.

SBK may not be the best choice in the UK for weeds in lawns - see above.

It is better suited to killing brushwood and brambles.

[Harry Bloomfield Esq]

I once heard of a gardener writing an offensive comment of a beautiful lawn, because he hadn't been paid, with glyphosate.

[Paul]

A neighbour back home, purchased glyphosate instead of Weedex, and every place he'd squirted a dandelion, there was a nice circular burn mark in the lawn. Classic goodness, because everyone who passes by, knows immediately what mistake was made.

It was claimed that the man was a "teacher", but even after he passed, it was not clear what his area of expertise was. Apparently not lawn care :-)

That can't happen today, because the glyphosate is under lock and key at the store. The purchaser must pass an IQ test delivered by the clerk, to get some :-)

Now that we're deprived of so many useful chemicals here, this is how I deal with a weed. This is the lowest tech weeding tool we've got.

Paul

[Fredxx]

I have used a paintbrush with the neat stuff to selectively take out the weeds.

[Paul]

The bottle the gentleman used, came fitted with a sprayer on it. That's why he sprayed it, rather than applying it very very selectively.

The thing he bought, was probably intended to be applied to cracks in paving, to stop the greenery that sprouts there. And instead, he walked out into the lawn, and opened fire.

Part of the reason these things happen, is the print on the documents is way way too small for humans to read.

The effectiveness of glyphosate, is strongly dependent on the additive that comes with it. Straight glyphosate is pretty useless. On "waxy" weeds, glyphosate and water just rolls off, before the chemical can have effect. If you include a wetting agent, the treatment then "coats" the greenery for a longer period of time, and gives a chance for uptake.

And this is part of the reason, there are so many compositions of product. Farmers are presented with a lot more choices, than home owners.

Glyphosate no longer works for all weeds, and some weeds are now resistant. This is another reason for yearly changes to composition of treatments.

"We do not have to go into detail about probabilities to assess whether superweeds will form – we already have confirmation that they have. Twenty-four cases of glyphosate-resistant weeds have been reported around the world, 14 of which are in the United States [7]. Farmers are now back to tilling their farmlands and spraying more toxic herbicides in addition to Roundup in an attempt to control the superweeds spreading across their farmlands [8]."

Paul

[jkn]

AKA a 'daisy grubber', I think. Or use Martin Brown's screwdriver.

J^n