Thickening a liquid

of scutch grass which is growing up through everything in the borders. If I apply the bare liquid I run the risk of it running down the stem and kill ing the goodies.

Put on rubber gloves. (NO holes) Put on woollen gloves on top of them. Dip you your hands in the solution and run them through the weeds. Soil inactivates roundup.

es of scutch grass which is growing up through everything in the borders. I f I apply the bare liquid I run the risk of it running down the stem and ki lling the goodies.

Tried that. No good as scutch grass is growing through the plants I want to keep and the gloves tend to drip

scutch grass which is growing up through everything in the borders. If I apply the bare liquid I run the risk of it running down the stem and killing the goodies.

Roundup gel is designed for that type of situation.

Colin Bignell

scutch grass which is growing up through everything in the borders. If I apply the bare liquid I run the risk of it running down the stem and killing the goodies.

Wallpaper paste or flour. You can buy a glyphosate gel formulation as a touch stick.

On Monday 13 May 2013 08:29 fred wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Gelatin I would have thought...

I cannot see how salt could possibly work???

The waves at sea would be very interesting if salt had a really substantial thickening effect.

I note that the thickener used for Roundup Gel is a trade secret.

Then that is undoubtedly the answer because thickening chemicals is far from straightforward.

scutch grass which is growing up through everything in the borders. If I apply the bare liquid I run the risk of it running down the stem and killing the goodies.

Wallpaper paste works, but you cannot store it once thickened, since the starch in the paste grows fungus and it goes runny again (not sure of the mechanism of that.)

Actually it is comparatively easy provided that the chemical is not too aggressive. Wallpaper paste, flour, cornflower, agar will all do it.

It is unlicensed use of a pesticide but far better in my opinion than paying anything to Monsanto for Roundup(TM) products. Any sheds own bradn glyphosate product with maximum g/L of active ingredient is as good and avoids giving money to irresponsible GM advocates.

NB I am not against GM but I am against Monsanto for the cavalier way they foisted RoundupReady on the world and damaged the entire industry.

Bet the ready made gel costs significan;y more than the already significantly marked up, branded, Roundup.

Other cheaper and stronger glyphosate based weed killers are available.

scutch grass which is growing up through everything in the borders. If I apply the bare liquid I run the risk of it running down the stem and killing the goodies.

Get a small hand held rope wick applicator.

Interesting that the COSHH data sheet classes it as non hazardous... presumably to avoid disclosure of much detail about its composition.

I think the OP is thinking of salt being used to thicken bleach. As you say, I don't think it can thicken anything else.

Another Dave.

My guess would be poly ethylene oxide. Any competent firm would be able to analyse and reverse engineer anyway.

They use it for washing up liquid as well.

He might have got the idea from

But unless you want some sort of soap/detergent in the Roundup too, not really relevant. I suppose it might help penetrate pores in the leaves. Or kill any greenfly on the grass :-)

One of the difficulties in designing glyphosate preparations is including something which makes the plant absorb it without killing the leaf on contact (which would stop it from working).

There is already a powerful surfactant in the Roundup formulation - in fact the wetting agent is significantly more toxic than the glyphosate!

Wallpaper paste is the cheapest thickener and easily available. It won't keep very well as the starch becomes food for yeasts PDQ.

I imagine the difficult bit is to thicken it without affecting the penetration of the chemical. I should have said thickening surfactants isn't straightforward.