yellow nutsedge

[Anonymous-0]

im being overun with nutsedge in my vegetable garden,i have tried roundup,and 24d(i found out after application nutsedge isnt grass)any body have any suggestions to get rid of it,health reasons i cant hoe it,but i have been cultivating it,but its more determined to grow than i am anymore.thank you all for the help in the past

 

[Absent Minded Farmer]

Howdy Joe, my experience with nutsedge is this:
1. Cultivators just drag the roots around with the tubers (nuts) attached & deposits them to grow elsewhere.
2. A rototiller might work. I haven't tried this method but it might chop everything fine enough not to come back. I would think you would want to work the whole infested area real good for at least one growing season. As I said his is only a thought, though. Maybe someone on this forum may know more about it.
3. Pen off your garden & let pigs root around. They like the tubers for some reason. They are edible to us but ONLY the yellow nutsedge & NOT the purple. They may make you ill.
4. A neat herbicide called Sedgehammer. I found out about this nifty little aid on this site, I think. Works great! But, it's another case of treat the whole area & for two years at that. Worked great in my instance. Had a patch of it start in a low/wet spot & crept into the field from there. Sedgehammer has worked good, so far. There is always the chance of a tuber or two not sprouting & avoiding the application all together. They may pop up & propogate, they may rot. It's up to higher powers to do that kinda work. - Mike

P.S. I found the Sedgehammer on Ebay in individual packs. You may find, in your search, only cases & then they might tell you they only sell to golf courses & parks.

 

[SC Farmer]

Spray (Sandea/Permit) but only in the middles.

 

[chuck bolton]

i think sledge hammmer works well-- but i think it gets a better kill when u spray it in the fall, when the plant is sucking down nutrients to store for the winter. often it burns off the root before the chemical gets to the nut-- have heard about putting hogs on the patch. but im not sure they'd go deep enough and ofcourse u cant do that when your garden is up and growing.

 

[mazemeister]

nutsedge is one of the most troublesome weeds I know of. herbicide options are limited. depending on crops and your location, the following can be used: Sandea/Permit, Dual, Basagran, Eptam. 2,4-D will cause some stunting, not usually a kill. I've read, but not experienced, that atrazine might also help. Roundup in the spring supposedly will burn back the foliage, but it will grow right back. Roundup in the later summer/fall is supposed to get moved down into the tubers and kill them.

Getting rid of nutsedge is a project for many years, exploiting every weakness we know of:

-nutsedge doesn't compete well in dense shade. So if you can get something like field corn, grain, etc that grows thick and fast, that might help.
-selective herbicides when possible.
-summer fallow ie disk every 2 weeks to run down root reserves.
-nutsedge produces another crop of tubers in july and later when daylight starts to shorten. If your crop is harvested by then, you can repeatedly disk to prevent propagation.
-I've never tried hogs, but sounds like a good idea.

 

[JMS/.MN]

2,4-D is not a grass killer, it works on broadleaf weeds. Basagran worked pretty well for me on nutsedge.