Title:
Ideas for Getting a Firm Grip on Weed Control
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
See text below
Text:
Weeds compete with plantings for water and
nutrients. So farmers and gardeners may have good
reason to hate them. But weeds can also bring pretty
flowers and wild beauty to places lacking either.
British nature writer Richard Mabey offers support
for them in his new book. The title says it all.
"Weeds: In Defense of Nature's Most Unloved Plants."
But when exactly is a plant considered a weed?
Experts at Penn State University say the answer is
simple: when the undesirable qualities outweigh the
good qualities.A crop plant generally produces
several hundred seeds. But a weed plant can produce
tens or even hundreds of thousands of seeds. And if
seeds get buried, they may survive for many years
underground. Eradicating weeds means that you have
to remove all the seeds and roots so the plants will
not grow back. But birds or the wind can reintroduce
them to the land. A more common way to deal with
weeds is to control them enough so that the land can
be used for planting. Experts advise using two or
more control methods to deal with weeds. Chemical
weed killers or natural treatments like corn gluten
can suppress weed growth. But so can dense planting.
Bill Curran is a professor of weed science at Penn
State. He says a dense, competitive crop that
quickly shades the soil from the sun will help
reduce weed growth. Other controls include turning
over the soil, pulling the weeds or covering them
with mulch made of wood, garden waste or other
material. But even mulch has its limits. Natural
resource specialists point out that weeds can be
transported in mulch. This is also true of soil,
grain, hay and animals. Yet animals like sheep or
goats eat weeds, so they can provide a biological
control. Insects and other organisms can also act as
biological controls. Preventing the spread of weeds
is an important part of weed management. Farm
vehicles should be kept out of areas with weeds. If
that is not possible, then clean off the equipment
and your shoes when leaving. Some people burn weeds
or bury them deep in the ground or make them into
mulch. Professor Curran says another way to make use
of weeds is to compost them. The process of making
organically rich compost produces heat. This heat
kills many, though not all, weed seeds. The same is
true for seeds that pass through animals that graze
on weeds. For VOA Special English, I'm Carolyn
Presutti.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
