Steel in the Field: A Farmer's Guide to Weed-Management Tools (Sustainable Agriculture Network Handbook Series, 2)

Weed control demands time, labor and expense for every farmer every year. Steel in the Field shows how today's implements and techniques can control weeds while reducing -- or eliminating -- herbicides. In practical language, the 128-page book presents what farmers and researchers have learned in the last 20 years about cutting weed-control costs through improved cultivation tools, cover crops and new cropping rotations. This is the first tool-centered book to combine farmer experience, commercial agricultural engineering expertise and university research. It directly tackles the hard questions of how to comply with erosion-prevention plans, how to remain profitable and how to manage residue and moisture loss. Farmers -- 22 of them -- do a lot of the talking, sharing their struggles and successes with tools, weeds, herbicides and cropping systems. Their advice ranges from the specific -- setting mini-disks 0.75 inches deep and 2 inches away from 2-inch tall plants -- to the general, such as one farmer's estimate of the correct speed for using his coil-tine weeder: "As fast as you can hang on is fine." This book is a must for anyone looking to reduce or replace pesticide inputs. Index, contact list, detailed illustrations and tool source list included.