"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...

In article ,
Janet Baraclough writes:
| The message
| from K contains these words:
|
| Are you sure of that? exactly half?
| There is rarely a linear relationship between dosage and
effectiveness.
| Round-up (dimethoate) is a systemic which is transported through the
| plant for action - increasing the dose can make it *less* effective,
so
| it is conceivable tht there are situations where a lower dose will
make
| it *more* effetive.
|
| I was recently at a talk by the head gardener of a very famous
| English garden. During question time, he recommended using glyphosate
at
| half strength, which he said is just as effective for half the cost.

MORE effective. With ground elder and bindweed, I find that full strength
just burns the leaves off. Half strength works a lot better.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren
I have created one allottment fom an old comfrey field-comfrey with many
nettles with some couch grass, and also recovered an allottment which was
heavily overgrown by couch. You have to work at it, the roots are easily
recognised, by sight and touch so you can recover precious plants by digging
up the rootball, and disentangling the couch roots which are easily
recognised.
In areas overgrown by couch I tackled one area of 50 square yards by
rigorous digging, sieving and taking out as many of the root fragments as I
could find.
Inevitably there were a few fragments left, but these could be dealt with
with relative ease as the characteristic shoots of fresh growth appeared.
Planting potatoes ASAP is a good growth supressant.
Digging is tiring and time consuming so I used round up for the next
50square yards at the recommneded dosage for couch. After a month I was left
with a mass of brown dead roots which could be turned in, but there were
occasional paler patches of root c 1inch long from which new shoots were
appearing. Round up was faster than rigorous digging and sieving but not
100% effective, and you still need to follow it up.

Regards
David T