Michael J Ssali
Physical fight with weeds may also be described as mechanical control of weeds. Agriculturalists describe a weed as any unwanted plant found in a garden where crops are growing. Weeds are a real nuisance and fighting them is one of the farmers’ preoccupations.
Weeds compete with the crops for soil nutrients and reduce farm yields. They are categorised as annual, biennial, and perennial. Annual weeds last about one year. Biennial weeds naturally die after about two years.
Perennial weeds last beyond two years and they may take over the garden, making it hard for the farmer to grow any crops until they are gotten rid of. Weeds have different growing habits and varying botanical nature. Some have underground tubers which sprout and send out creepers that may cover crops like coffee, reducing their access to direct sunlight.
Some have very strong roots deep in the soil and cutting them above the ground hardly means anything because the roots soon sprout and the shoots emerge again. Some annual or biennial weeds can be removed with the use of simple tools such as hand hoes but they have resilient seeds which may lie dormant for months until the wet season when they germinate.
The best way to fight such weeds is to kill them by hand hoeing before they are tall enough to produce seeds. The majority of farmers in Uganda are peasants struggling to make a living. The hand hoe is the main tool they use to physically fight all classes of weeds. If the tilling is carried out well weeds have little chance to flower and produce seeds.
In some cases the weeds are buried in the soil where they turn into manure. The hand hoe can be used to even dig up the tubers and strong roots of stubborn weeds. However repeated, mindless, tilling of the garden facilitates soil erosion by water and wind. Mulching or keeping the ground covered with grass or leaves is one effective way of controlling weeds in the garden.
The farmer can hand pull any emerging weeds from the mulch. Hand pulling can also be practiced where weeds grow within rows of planted crops. The advantage of hand pulling the weeds from the ground is that the farmer can lay the uprooted weeds carefully on the ground where they dry and rot, eventually turning into organic manure.
