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Re: Is it possible

On Fri, 20 Mar 1998, Barry Garcia wrote:

> In my 70 x 100 ft backyard we have a thick "meadow" of annual european
> grasses. Most notably "foxtails" and ripgut brome. i was wondering, if
> i cut them now while the seeds are still green and keep cutting the
> grasses back until they lose their energy and die, will the green seeds
> ive missed still mature ( the ones that have been separated from the
> plants)? Is it possible to rid my backyard of these grasses by
> continuously cutting them back? (its funny how these weeds invade
> exponentionally)

Immature grass seeds will germinate quite nicely, though they don't
tend to store well.  In fact, many grass seeds are viable within
6-7 days of pollination, though they don't have significant endosperm
reserves (remember that black and white photo of the cross section of
corn embryo that's in every botany textbook? That's 6 days after
pollination.)

Grass seeds retain viability for about 10 years or so in the soil
under most circumstances, so you're going to need to do clean cultivation
for about 10 years before you'll make significant headway.

What usually works quite well is tilling the whole area several times
a year, watering enough to encourage weed seed to germinate, then 
tilling again before they start to flower.  A couple of years of that
will get about 50% of your grass seed in the seed bank; then plant
thickly with a cover crop of some sort.  

Alternatively, use a light occlusive mulch and plant through it;
the solution to long term cultural control of most weeds is canopy
closure.

Kay Lancaster    kay@fern.com
just west of Portland, OR; USDA zone 8
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