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Let’s face it -– controlling weeds remains the no.
1 challenge facing producers across America. Trying to do so with
few or no herbicides presents an even tougher battle.
In some ways, cultivating for weed control is almost a lost art.
Herbicides seemed to work so well for so long that many farmers
abandoned mechanical means of control. Today, farmers are employing
many techniques to control weeds, including careful selection of
crops in rotations, using cover crops to compete with and smother
weeds and, of course, mechanical cultivation. With new implements
and improved versions of the basic rotary hoes, basket weeders and
flame weeders of 50 years ago, we are seeing improved efficiency.
Steel in the Field: A Farmer’s Guide to Weed Management
Tools provides information about how each implement works,
rates each tool’s usefulness in certain conditions, identifies
problems other farmers have faced and how to get more information.
First published in 1997, this revised 2002 version includes updated
tool sources with World Wide Web sites, updated contact information
for experts and current tool prices.
This is the first tool-centered book to combine farmer experience,
commercial agicultural engineering expertise and university research.
It directly tackles the hard questions of how to comply with erosion-prevention
plans, how to remain profitable and how to manage residue and moisture
loss.
Farmers -– 22 of them –- do a lot of the talking, sharing
their struggles and successes with tools, weeds, herbicides and
cropping systems.
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