1. Home
  2. Question and Answer
  3. Houseplants
  4. Garden Articles
  5. Most Popular Plants
  6. Plant Nutrition

20 percent vinegar for weeds/grasses in garden


Question
Where should I look to buy this vinegar locally?  Mostly I have grass and Johnson grass will this help?

Answer
It's official. The U.S. Government has declared that Acetic Acid - Vinegar - works on Weeds.

Just a few years ago, USDA scientists investigated the use of Vinegar as a weedkiller. They picked a site in Oklahoma and sprayed it on everything - Dandelions and other broadleaf weeds, wild grass, crabgrass, carpetweed. When the results finally rolled in, even THEY were impressed with how good Vinegar was as a weedkiller. It was most effective on broadleaf weeds, less on grasses. One formula, a 5 percent Vinegar solution, actually wiped out 90 percent of the wild Evening Primroses. 84 percent of the broadleaf weeds melted under a dose of 10 percent Vinegar.
Note that supermarket Vinegar is only 5 percent strength. Even full strength kitchen Vinegar can't do the kind of damage you want to inflict on most weeds. The most effective solution was stronger - around 20 percent, a caustic concentration sold in farm supply stores that can burn your skin.

But there's a solution to this, too.

Researchers at Cornell University found they boosted the weedkilling power of Vinegar by heating it up. Dandelions survived. Canadian Thistle did not.

Vinegar works on contact, burning foliage instantly. It works even BETTER if you add a dash of liquid soap, which helps Vinegar to stick to leaves and extend the damage. But because sprayed Vinegar doesn't reach roots, perennial weeds like Dandelions often recover. Weeks later, they're sending fluffy white seedheads up into the air again.

The key is multiple treatments. In the case of Dandelions, a triple dose of Vinegar is required, spaced a few days apart - enough to cause pain and suffering that compounds instead of allowing recovery between sprays. And you have to do this while avoiding vegetation that you don't want to damage, like grass, flowers and vegetables.

Bravo to you for putting Planet Earth first.  Thanks for writing,

L.I.G.

Copyright © www.100flowers.win Botanic Garden All Rights Reserved