DIY weed wand for spot poisoning farm weeds
DIY weed wand or applicator is described for efficient spot-poisoning farm weeds.
Background and introduction to DIY weed wand
While participating in Friends of Mt Baw Baw blackberry control working bees we used glyphosate wick wands. These were custom-made plastic bottles with a sponge poison pad at the opening and a screw-on cover cap that covered the pad while it was being carried to and from the work site. These devices were used to apply concentrated glyphosate herbicide directly to the cut stems (pen nib style) of blackberries and onto a short section of the scraped bark on the side of the remaining stem. The treatment was targeted and deadly. It was a delight, on subsequent working bees, to observe the dead stubs resulting from our handiwork.
I employed the same poison wand on blackberries and other weeds in my garden and farm. Alas, as for most things plastic, the device broke down and crumbled. I could not find a replacement, so I set about to find an alternative DIY weed wand. I made three wands that cost nothing and are suited to ‘cut and paint poisoning‘ of a variety of weeds in a range of steep hill farming situations. The targeted weeds are blackberries, bracken fern, ragwort, hawthorn, thistles and more.
Targeted poisoning with a weed wand is efficient, environmentally sensitive and particularly suited to use while performing other primary gardening or farm pasture management duties. It only kills the targeted plant. In a pasture situation, the desired grass species are ready to take over the vacated ground. In contrast, weed spraying kills surrounding grasses and the bare ground allows more weeds to prosper.
The use of a strong dye in the weed wand poison provides an immediate indication of what has been poisoned and how effectively the poison has been distributed. This visual identification simplifies the poisoning process in the hurley-burley of field management of multiple farm weed species. These weeds are often cohabitants in difficult terrain and often require simultaneous but different pre-treatments such as cutting, slashing, sawing, bruising and trampling before the final poisoning step can be done efficiently.
If the dye is particularly concentrated it will allow subsequent assessment of the effectiveness of the systemic poisoning treatment some months later. In this regard, a ~50:50 mix of glyphosate:red-spray-dye is very effective (even when red/green colour blind) as the colour fades but is still visible months later.
To be most effective the poison should be applied to the entirety of the stump of the decapitated weed. Additionally, the poison should be applied to the freshly cut surface without delay. This maximises the penetration of the systemic poison into the plant root system.
Consequently, for decapitations of clusters of hawthorn bushes/trees, re-cutting below the primary cuts is beneficial when usually the poison application is delayed. Such re-cutting often allows the stump finish to be optimised for poisoning over the entire section of the stump rather than on multiple branches.
For isolated and thin plants such as hawthorn seedlings & shoots and blackberry stems they can be poisoned immediately on the sump and on scrapped areas of the bark.
[Add photos of the poison-stained weeds: blackberry and ragwort ]
Three DIY weed wands
Three weed wands are described and they have different strengths and weaknesses. Used together, they make an effective tool kit for tackling a wide range of weeds on flats and steep hillsides.
Toothbrush and jam jar. This first device is hardly a wand, but it is magical all the same. It has become a valuable spot poison applicator for large-diameter stumps of weeds. Where possible secateurs or long handle loppers to cut through the hawthorn trunk near the ground level. These cuts are smooth and coat easily with poison from weed wands with fabric wicks (described later).
Larger hawthorn bushes and trees must be sawn off with a chainsaw, pole saw or similar. Such cutting leaves many grooves and ridges. The toothbrush bristles can coat the whole surface easily while weed wands with soaker pads or wicks do not produce a good poison coverage on the rough surface.
Deep bark scraping and then poisoning is also an easy supplementary death touch for larger hawthorn bushes and trees and again the brush easily accesses all areas on a stump.
The brush also works well on all the other weeds. However, it is unstable and has a propensity to tip over and spill. This led me to make another supplementary wand that is spill-proof and more amenable to repeated small poisonings. With such rapid poisoning, I cut with secateurs in one hand and immediately poison with a weed wand in the other.
Aluminium hydration tablet tube weed wand. My next wand is made from a Berocca tube. I drilled a 4mm diameter hole in the lid with a step drill, using the bevel cutter on the next step of the drill to gently chamfer each face of the hole. Through this hole, I pulled a doubled-over roll of cellulose-based kitchen cloth (Chux cloth) to make a poison wick. I have successfully used this cloth for making DIY glide wax applicators for skiing.
The essence of the weed wick threading method is described in the photo under the marker pen weed wand description. I hope it can describe the process better than my words, but it is quite easy after making a few blunders with threading things the wrong way.
The Berocca tube weed wand had a small delay before the wick end became saturated with poison. However, it could maintain the wick saturation, under heavy use, if held in a somewhat inverted orientation. Surprisingly, the liquid did not leak out as drips or dribble down the side of the tube. An exception to this was when the tube was refilled and the lid was pressed in. The pressure increase caused a tiny amount of liquid, within the used wick, to leak out but the leaking stopped quickly.
In use, the poison spreads over the surface of the lid and this spread was good when occasionally targeting weeds such as small ragwort seedlings. The brush applicator was more effective on more mature ragwort rosettes.
Permanent marker pen weed wand for a pocket. The above weed wands are very effective when doing dedicated weed poisoning. However, the brush and open wick make them unsuitable to carry in a pocket in farm clothing or in a general-purpose farm tool kit.
Having a pocket-friendly weed wand that can be there at all times would enable the opportunistic killing of weeds while doing other farm tasks. “It grieves me to walk past a weed and not have a tool to quickly kill it.” This weed wand made from a marker pen will enable me to be ready to give most weeds a quick death dab whenever I encounter them.
I unscrew the nib of a buggered marker pen and remove the plastic bezel, felt tip and fibrous stuffing from inside the pen body. Then I make a poison wick from Chux cloth and thread it through the bezel ring according to the photo below. The wick should be suitably tight fitting so that poison does not freely run out and not too tight as to make the wicking too slow.
The bezel and wick can be placed back into the pen body after adding the glyphosate/dye maker mix.
Conclusion and discussion
When used in a sensible combination the three weed wands can simplify ‘cut and paint’ weed management in gardens and on farms. For larger ragwort rosettes, a DIY weed wand with a wide wick head may one day join this weed wick tool kit.
Tim
