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

Steel in the Field: A Farmer's Guide to Weed-Management Tools (Sustainable Agriculture Network Handbook Series, 2) by Bowman, Greg. Paperback edition. ISBN: 9781888626025.

Weed control demands time, labor and expense for every farmer every year. Steel in the Field shows how todays 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 farmers 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.