The Pest Advice: weed weapon

Monday, January 6, 2014

Weed Weapon Direct Hit – A new aerosol weed killer

Kiwicare recently launched a new member of its highly successful Weed Weapon herbicide range. Weed Weapon Direct Hit is convenient, safer, and as fast acting as the Weed Weapon ready to use spray; weeds will fall over with a few hours.

I have found it the handiest weed killer to have with me when I take a walk around the garden. It will fit in my jacket pocket. If I see a weed popping it’s leaves up through a crevice in the path I can give it a short burst of the highly directional foam and the weed will be dead the next time I pass by.

When spot spraying weeds it can be difficult to accurately hit the weed without accidentally hitting surrounding plants, or allowing spray drift to be blown onto nearby desirable plants. The foam of Direct Hit means there is no spray drift. It would have to be a very stormy day to cause the foam to blow onto other plants.

The foam is visible for about 5 minutes so that you won’t waste herbicide spraying weeds twice. And it requires only a small blob of the foam in the centre of weeds such as dandelions or thistles for them to die. It is not necessary to spray the whole weed. Even though it is convenient in the aerosol can, which usually means paying a higher price, because of the reduced waste of spray drift it is economical to use. I have found a single can of Direct hit is sufficient for over 300 weeds of the rosette type and I have used it for spot spraying such weeds in a lawn.

Applying Direct hit to weeds in a ‘lawn’

A few hours later the same day

It is recommended to wear impervious gloves when applying all herbicides and there is no exception with Direct Hit but as there is no spray drifting onto hands, or any other parts of the body, or if the foam did hit any part it is easily seen and washed off making it safer to use.

I did some testing on how accurate and effective Direct is and as you can see below I had some fun.

Direct Hit might not replace the Weed Weapon in a spray form but it has some big benefits in being easy to use, highly directional and safe for spot spraying, fast and surprisingly economical.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Weedy Spring

Humans may not have enjoyed the wet weather experienced through winter and early spring, but weeds have. It means soil moisture levels are high, and this, along with spring warmth, encourages seeds to germinate and plants to grow rapidly. Weeds are weedy because they are fast growing and most capable of taking advantage of such opportunities.

Weeds come in many forms; a definition of a weed is a plant growing in the ‘wrong’ place. Think of grass in your drive versus grass in your lawn.

Weeds also tend to be plants that can grow and spread faster than those desirable plants around them. Yet another definition would be invasive weeds; those plants that have been brought into New Zealand and given the opportunity to grow and spread in the absence of the herbivorous mammals and insects that would normally eat them or competitor plants (see the Weedbuster website for more info on these).

In the garden, weeds are those plants that grow in the lawn, disrupting the even look of the carpet of grass, uninvited seedlings that pop up in flowerbeds and grow rapidly spreading and strangling the desirable plants, or those plants that grow in cracks in driveways and paths, looking unsightly and damaging the paths or drives with their roots.

The weather forecasters at NIWA and MetService are predicting normal, or above normal rainfall and temperatures for New Zealand over the next quarter. This means that weeds will continue to cause problems in the rapid growing conditions and home owners will spend more of their time trying to keep the weeds in their garden under control. New herbicides are available to assist in their battle. The recent launch of Kiwicare’s Weed Weapon will be of significant benefit. It combines the effectiveness and safety of glyphosate with a new active ingredient that makes it work much more quickly and it will kill some weeds that glyphosate alone will not. Old technology glyphosate could take up to two weeks to begin knock down of weeds, but Weed Weapon with Xpi technology can show effects within a day or two. Indeed the ready to use version will show affects within a few hours.

A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows.

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Monday, January 6, 2014

Weed Weapon Direct Hit – A new aerosol weed killer

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Weedy Spring