Cheap ways to control weeds

Weeds are one of the farmers’ biggest worries. They can reduce profits in two ways. If the farmer chooses to employ people to remove them, money is spent on labour by the farmer and it is a cost to be registered in the farm’s accounts books.  If he decides to use an herbicide some money has to be spent to purchase it and it is another cost to be recorded in the farm’s books.

If he pays no attention to the weeds and they grow together freely with the crops, they may consume more soil nutrients than the crop and cause low crop yields and less profits.

The bush may attract pests and rodents to the garden that are destructive to the farmed crop. Hence the constant war between the farmer and the weeds.

When finally the crop is harvested and sold the money spent on fighting weeds (overheads) must be put into consideration as the farmer calculates his profit. Weeds don’t strengthen food security.

One way to fight weeds is to plant crop seeds rather closely so that there is quick coverage of the ground by the crop before the weeds emerge. The crops’ leaves will deny the weeds sufficient sunlight to grow well.

Agriculturalists advise farmers to plant the crop seeds immediately after ground preparation so that the crops emerge from the ground and grow before the weed seeds germinate.

Planting good seeds and using fertilizers facilitates quick germination and vigorous growth of the crop.

Mulching is another effective method of weed control. When all the ground is covered with grass or tree leaves, weeds have no easy way out of the ground.

The farmer however can still dig holes all over the covered ground and plant crops such as maize, beans, coffee, tomatoes, green pepper, and a whole range of others which will grow before the weeds emerge.

During land preparation, some farmers bury all the weeds in the ground where they get rotten together with their seeds. When crops are planted there is a much reduced chance of the weeds dominating the garden.

For perennial crops such as coffee, slashing weeds can be quite preventive. This method is however more effective in fighting tall grass.

Some short weeds may still do a lot of damage to the coffee. Some people recommend planting low creeping and nitrogen fixing plants such as mukuna.     

Mr Michael Ssali is a veteran journalist,

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