paradoxbox wrote:Yep I have asked the local JA and farm store people but there are no rice farmers near here - too mountainous.
If your area has a 自動精米機/籾摺機 nearby you might be able to get momigara from that. The one in my town blows the hulls into one little room, and the nuka into another. If you want to, you can take the momigara home, but the seimaiki owner keeps the nuka.
There should be a phone number inside on the machine you can call and ask about.
"... so, the cucumbers said to the cabbage, `Lettuce Go.`"
Hi in reply to ZN yes the weeds are always a big problem here. I have been given some tatami mat outer covers to help with the weeds and have just laid them out so let's see how they last.
Cheers
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Great info in this thread!
Just put down some black mulch yesterday to keep the weeds at bay.
I have been madly pulling out sugina スギナ recently at the new plot and as it seems to be a really genki bugger
is there a sure fire way to get rid of it? Is it a case of just keeping pulling it out until the vegetative parts are gone and
it stops springing up? im worried that itll survive under the black plastic. Also now im just doing a small plot to get the lady keen
but when i move to a bigger field im wondering how people keep it down?
Cheer guys!
Sugina is a really tough one to control. It is possible but it's not easy. You'll often hear folk say that making the soil more alkaline works because sugina likes acidic soil but that's not true, Sugina prefers neutral soil but can tolerate acidic soil.
If you are willing to use glyphosate then that can work but it takes time as sugina doesn't easily absorb it so you have to make repeated sprayings. I've personally not used this method but apparently it can work.
Long term you can slowly weaken it by repeated running a kusakariki over it every single week. This does work but is very intensive and takes a very long time or you can weaken it by growing tall crops like edamame, potatoes, etc that out compete it for light. You can also beat it by repeatedly running a tractor or rotovator over the area but this will take months and could take up to a year depending how deep it's roots go. If the roots are shallow you could do it in 2 - 3 months.
In the mean time you can cut it down and use it as a mulch or add to your compost pile as it brings up a good amount of phosphorous from deep in the soil. Black mulch is good and does hinder it but it can sometimes break through but you can just pull out any offending sprouts. If you keep your hatake covered in mulch and run the kusakariki down the pathways every week that will go a long way towards weakening it without using chemicals but it will be a long battle.
Flame weeding can be quicker than a kusakariki in some circumstances as it just needs to briefly sweep across small weeds and can rapidly turn this
Into this
In the above example it's also safer than running the kusakariki in there as there is no danger of accidentally cutting one of the stems off any of the potato plants. You might singe a bit of a lower leaf but that's about it.
They are also useful when preparing stale seed beds for planting.