Re: Re: CULT: mulch/alfalfa and weed preventer

Chuck--

We use Surflan (oryzalin) which is related to Treflan, but seems to have no
ill
effects on transplants. It is an orange liquid, and just a small amount in a
two gallon
hand sprayer will treat 1000 square feet. It can be effective for 4-8
months. It is recommended
that plants be established before spraying, but that is NOT an option in the
production fields. Waiting for irises to establish would give weeds time to
be thick
and proud <G>. We apply the day we transplant, and hopefully mother nature
cooperates
with 1/2" of rain within 21 days to fully activate the surflan. Meanwhile,
we spot treat weeds by
pulling or spraying Stinger. For those who hate herbicides, note that we
have 1.5 acres of
iris in a commercial garden, and cultivation is a 1.5 man show. We are
responsible with
the chemicals. That said, you may ask how we are sure it has no ill effects
on the irises....
well, one year we miscounted and ended up at double the recommended
concentration
for 8 month control. Irises did well, and few weeds appeared until a year
was passed.

Monterey Lawn and Garden Producs---Weed Impede

John Bruce
Hidden Acres Iris Gardens

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chuck B" <whozher@mintel.net>
To: <iris@hort.net>
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2004 8:15 PM
Subject: Re: [iris] Re: CULT: mulch/alfalfa and weed preventer


> Grif,
> I learned a herbicide lesson the hard way this year.  Last fall I sprayed
> Treflan (active ingredient trifluralin, the same as Preen) in some new
beds
> to help with grass primarily.  To my delight--no grass or much of anything
> else.   Also to my surprise and dismay the newly planted iris I purchased
> did not grow at all in the virgin soil.  This summer I dug some of the
most
> pathetic up and found no roots!  An overdose of trifluralin will inhibit
new
> root growth.  I translplanted the worse-off plants and they have responded
> nicely.  My application rate with a hose end sprayer involved some
> calculation which I thought was close but apparently not close enough.  I
> gues I should have spent more time reading directions and cautions--as
much
> as I dislike doing it.
> Lesson learned.
> Chuck Bunnell
> Lafayette, IN
> Region 6
> Zone 5a-5b
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "J. Griffin Crump" <jgcrump@erols.com>
> To: <iris@hort.net>
> Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2004 5:41 PM
> Subject: [iris] Re: CULT: mulch/alfalfa and weed preventer
>
>
> | Several years ago, after being fed up with having to mix my own 6-24-24
> | fertilizer because the ready-mixed can't be obtained in the Washington
> area
> | (like so many things), I took the advice of Nancy Szmuriga, who had been
> using
> | Rabbit Chow as a top dressing on her seldom-turned urban beds in New
> Jersey.
> |
> | Apply some in the fall, and again in the late winter/early spring.  It
> worked
> | very nicely.  I decided to incorporate it as a tilled-in mix in
preparing
> new
> | beds, and again it worked very well.
> |
> | Then, 2 years ago, my newly set-out seedling sprouts suddenly went
> owhere  --
> | just sat there for months looking like they did when they were first set
> out,
> | and only one of the few hundred bloomed the following spring.
Subsequent
> to
> | that, somone of our list correspondents praised alfalfa but warned
against
> the
> | use of Rabbit Chow, saying  --  if I remember correctly  -- that it
> contains
> | salt, which inhibits growth.  Looking at my seedlings, I wondered if
that
> | explained the no-growth of a year's crop  --  that perhaps some kind of
> toxic
> | salt had been added to the Rabbit Chow recently, since it had been
working
> | nicely up till that crop.  There was, however, another possibility  -- 
> that
> | the pre-germinant weed controller I had used on the beds, "Snapshot",
was
> the
> | culprit.  Again, however, I had been using it for some years without a
> | problem.  That year, however, my supplier had sent me a product with a
new
> | name, "TG2" or something like that, the packaging and contents looking
so
> | otherwise identical that I thought it was just a product name change.
So,
> I
> | pulled the left-over bag out of the shed and read the accompanying
> information
> | very, very carefully.  Sure enough, there was a warning to the effect:
> Don't
> | use on seedling beds.  I talked to my supplier and he apologized for
> sending
> | the wrong product  --  "Snapshot" was indeed still available  -- 
however,
> the
> | price had gone up from $135 for 50lbs to $189.  I decided to resume
using
> | Preen.
> |
> | This year I was scheduled to create several new beds and dig and renew
> some
> | old ones, so I decided to bite the bullet and pay the king's ransom for
> one
> | sack of the Snapshot.  (The area where I raise some of my seedlings is
> rife
> | with morning glorys, and Preen doesn't prevent them, but Snapshot does.)
> | Just in case, I read the Snapshot instructions very carefully, as I had,
> in
> | fact, when I first began using it.  And a good thing I did!  Here was a
> whole
> | new paragraph not only warning not to use Snapshot on seedling beds, but
> to
> | avoid using it on beds into which adult plants were to be set until the
> soil
> | had "cured" for some time (my word, not theirs).  In the past, I had
used
> this
> | product in both situations for several seasons with no adverse
> consequences.
> | Apparently, whatever bad thing is in "TG2" has also now been put into
> | Snapshot.  So the wrapup on the pregerminant weedkillers is this:  I put
> the
> | Preen on the new seedling beds and the new transplant beds, and used the
> | Snapshot on the established beds.  Everything is working fine in both
> | situations, and when the morning glorys pop up in the beds awaiting the
> | transplants, they get a shot of Roundup.
> |
> | So, now, what about the Rabbit Chow?  Even though I had by now concluded
> that
> | it had gotten a bum rap in Iris-talk and Iris-photos and had almost
taken
> the
> | fall here for the real culprit, "TG2", I decided to experiment.  I mixed
> | alfalfa pellets into the soil of half of the new seedling beds and
Rabbit
> Chow
> | into the other half.  Result?  They're both growing like gangbusters and
I
> | can't see any difference between them.  What Rabbit Chow has that
alfalfa
> | doesn't is antibiotics, so I'll be sticking with it.  --  Griff
> |
> | zone 7 in Virginia
> |
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> |
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