. Cranberries; : the national cranberry magazine. Cranberries. Even Hercules Would Have Balked! (EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is reprinted, with permission, from ''Re- search in Review," monthly magazine of Massachusetts Agricultural Experi- ment Station, University of Massachu- setts.) By CHESTER E. CROSS Head of Mass. Cranberry Experiment Sta. Eighteen hundred weeds to a square foot! Multiply this by 43,- 560, the number of square feet in an acre, and even Hercules would have balked at the task of pulling weeds by hand on our cranberry bogs. Yet, as recent as twenty years ago, this hope
. Cranberries; : the national cranberry magazine. Cranberries. Even Hercules Would Have Balked! (EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is reprinted, with permission, from ''Re- search in Review," monthly magazine of Massachusetts Agricultural Experi- ment Station, University of Massachu- setts.) By CHESTER E. CROSS Head of Mass. Cranberry Experiment Sta. Eighteen hundred weeds to a square foot! Multiply this by 43,- 560, the number of square feet in an acre, and even Hercules would have balked at the task of pulling weeds by hand on our cranberry bogs. Yet, as recent as twenty years ago, this hopeless procedure and mowing were the only meth- ods employed in ridding the bogs of weeds. Kerosene—An Effective Killer Today, cranberry growers rare- ly pull any grass on their bogs. A year's work of time-consuming hand labor has been replaced by a million gallons of kerosene, an effective weed killer but harmless to the cranberry plants. The vines can tolerate very heavy sprayings of kerosene oil, at least in their dormant condition, but the weeds cannot. The leaves of such cranberry weeds as the grasses, sedges, and rushes are so con- structed that the kerosene spreads to the base of the leaves where the oil lodges and kills the tissues. Spraying Not Expensive If, therefore, a grassy bog is sprayed with kerosene at the rate of 300 to 400 gallons to an acre, all the weed tops die and no measur- able injury occurs to the cranberry vines. If 800 to 1000 gallons of kerosene are sprayed to an acre, the weed roots as well as the weed tops will die. It is possible with a spray costing less than $150 an acre to treat a bog so overgrown with weeds that no cranberry vines are visible. Such a spraying will insure the bogs from all grassy weeds the following season and, with proper care, for many more seasons. Control Difficult In several ways, weed control in cranberries is more difficult than in other crops. First, cranberry vines are perennial and evergreen. As they grow, they cover
Size: 1784px × 1401px
Photo credit: © The Book Worm / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookcontributorumassamherstlibraries, bookspons
