Until they get the soil into a good, healthy condition with a well balanced nutrient load they mechanically "weed", plant cover crops known or suspected to have alelopathic tendencies, and never leave the soil open for "weed" growth. Since very few of those I know grow grains the beds they plant in for the market are usually fairly small, seldom will the have acres of, say greens, although the total of the many beds they do have might equal several acres. Since most of them plan to bring around 50 to 100 pounds of greens to market each week it is not a good idea for them to plant enough to produce 1,000 pounds at once, they need smaller areas, plots, that will produce what they can sell, this week, and another plot that will come ready next week, etc. Very few good, organic farmers will have large fields unless they are into grain producion.

A friend of a friend grows cotton on 640 acres in the Texas Panhandle. He sprays molasses 4 times during the season and that's about all he does. For weeds he has a tool that looks like a fork with long curved, flexible tines (crook your hand into almost a fist). These tines are carefully adjusted to scratch the surface at about 1/4 inch deep and go no deeper. He drags that when he thinks he needs to. This guy's deal is that he also doe not irrigate his cotton. The cost of irrigation is a significant fraction of his profit, but if he does not irrigate and relies only on rain and no-till, his productivity is almost as good as his neighbors. No-till is the reason. He and his neighbors have had their soils tested. Both soils are nearly identical in nutrients, but the no-till soil has a tremendous growth of mychorrizal fungi that the tilled soil does not have. These fungi attach to the plant roots and grow like roots to actively seek out moisture in the soil.

Another approach is to leave the weeds alone. In the organic citrus farms on the Rio Grande they are leaving the nutgrass alone. They find that productivity is completely unaffected by the presence of the weed, but their profit is severely affected if they try to eradicate it.

I have used thickly sown rye grain (cereal rye) to fight off weeds in several planting areas now and it helps a lot. Another plus is that you sow it in the mid or late fall when you are not as likely to be planting much else. Cut it down prior to seed set and you are good to go. My dad grew up on a farm and informed me that there was nothing new about this.

Thank you!

dchall: do you know any no-till farmers that use roundup to control weeds (ie are not organic)? It is the subject of discussion on another board, and a man who used to live in Kansas said that that was a common practice. I am curious about that.