weeder geese

Greg & Lei Gunthorp (hey4hogs@kuntrynet.com)
Fri, 25 Sep 1998 19:16:27 -0500

Janet,
I don't have any johnson grass but I sure do have weeds. I'd like to hear
how tall the corn has to be when you can let the geese in, how many geese it
would take per acre for weed control, and what size and age geese work best.
Any other management tips would be appreciated. I plant about 30 acres of
corn and beans per year and would like to be able to not spray it.
Cultivation, rotary hoe, flaming, rotation with pasture, and a few weeder
geese might do the trick?
Thank you,
Greg
Gunthorp's Pasture-ized Pork
LaGrange, Indiana (a stones throw from Ohio & Michigan)
hey4hogs@kuntrynet.com
visit our farm at www.grassfarmer.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Janet Bachmann <janetb@ncatark.uark.edu>
To: sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu <sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu>
Date: Friday, September 25, 1998 12:29 PM
Subject: Re: sanet-mg-digest V1 #567

Johnsongrass is excellent forage for livestock. I suppose that is
why the plant was introduced to this country. Anyway, other animals,
in addition to hogs, like to eat it. I don't have any research to
present, but a dairy farmer in Mississippi that I visited a few years
ago told me that he rotated his crop fields with pasture and the cows
eliminated the Johnsongrass by grazing. I have used weeder geese to
eliminate Johnsongrass in small areas. Confined the geese with
Electronet (also needed to keep predators from the geese.) They like
the grass when it is small, but it seemed that they didn't like it
after it got (approximately) 1 foot tall. It took 2 summers of
goose-grazing to get rid of the Johnsongrass.

Janet Bachmann
NCAT/ATTRA
P.O. Box 3657
Fayetteville, AR 72702
Telephone: 501-442-9824
Fax: 501-442-9842
E-mail: janetb@ncatark.uark.edu

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