Nice Crop of Fall Weeds May Become Fire Hazard Next Summer

Wow! The winter annual weeds have come up here in Northern Nevada and my yard now is a lawn of cheatgrass and mustard weed. It looks pretty now but it won't be fun next spring and by June if I don't have them cleared out I will have a real fire hazard on my hands. I think I'll experiment with some herbicidal soap since I have a neighbor who is certified organic and I can't spray any chemical herbicide near his property and the weeds know no boundaries. If I can kill some of them now maybe I can get a head start on my spring weeding.

Winter annual weeds germinate in the fall and this year they're doing exceptionally well because we had record rainfall in early October. Here in Fallon, Nevada where I live and garden we had just over 2" of moisture which is about half of what we normally receive for an entire year. Half of a year's precipitation in only three days' time! Wow! I wonder if we are going to have a record year or the rest of the year is going to be exceptionally dry.

Regardless of whether we have an exceptionally dry winter or a wet one I better take try to reduce my weed population now. Herbicidal soap kills weeds by destroying the cuticle, thus desiccating them when they lose control of moisture lost to the atmosphere. It works best on annuals because they don't have the extensive root system or any rhizomes with leafy shoots that can be missed by the spray. It also works best if on seedlings because they don't have a well developed root system to sustain them. In theory if I can burn off the leaves and prevent the cheatgrass and mustard developing a good root system before the ground freezes I may be able to kill most of them and reduce the seed bank produced next year.

So today I started spraying them and if it works I should notice wilting leaves by tomorrow. I only sprayed a small patch and have just over an acre to go. I don't want to put too much effort into spraying unless it looks like it's going to work. Stay tuned for progress on this project.