War of the Weeds / Victory....sort of.

Today I finished the weed spraying.
It was the end of the second round cleaning up what I had missed the first time.
I also made a concerted effort on the remaining bracken using metsulfuron-methyl.
This was originally developed by DuPont and known as Brush-off®. It was very expensive although the addition rate is very low 10g/100L. But the patent expired and more and cheaper brands came on the market.
I use Associate from Nufarm.
For bracken (and blackberry) a non ionic surfactant needs to be added to improve penetration.
The chemical is systemic and works by inhibiting plant cell division eventually killing it.
This can take some time. With bracken it can be six weeks before ‘yellowing’ of the fronds is noticeable.

The loneliness of a long distance sprayer

As for the other weeds, generally there was success. However, where dense clusters have died off this has left the soil exposed to sunlight which has lead to a secondary explosion of seed germination and growth.
I will have to wait until these get a little more mature before attacking the second wave, maybe a month or so.
As frustrating as this is I always remember one of my horticultural lecturers saying “one year’s seeds, seven year’s weeds”.
I hate to think how many kilometres I have walked around the property doing this project. But with initial load of around 18kg of backpack sprayer to carry it sure has improved my fitness level.
And as I have said before, with the nice autumn weather, strolling in the bush for a few hours a day is not such a bad thing.