The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1916-07-12
QuaCk Grass Can
Be EradiCated
Experience of Renville County
Farmer In Dealing With
Quack Grass

Inc question or now 10 XIII
quack grass is one of very much
Importance to the farmers Of
Renville County since many Of
the farms are infected to some
extent with quack grass. Mr..
O. NJ. Kiser, instructor of agri-
culture in the Hector high
scool, has written an interest
ing and timely article on this
subject for the Renville, County
Farm Bureau News in which he
gives the experience of himself
and others in the eradication of
quack grass. Following is the
article:
Probably one-half of the farms
of Renville county are more or
less infected with quack-grass.
Much can be found in farm pa
pers and literature from our
own state experiment station, on
methods of quack-grass eradica-
ton. Each section of the state
with it's somewhat different
types of soil and methods Of
farm practice, may not be able
to use the same means of de-
stroying this farm pest.
A method for killing quack-
grass, that has been worked out
very successfully for Renville
county, is that practiced by Mr..
John Olson Of Palmyra township.
Four years ago Mr.. Olson had
one of the worst quack infested
farms that could be found in
this county; today one may walk
over his fields and fail to find
any sign of quack, where for
merly it was a firm, compact,
quack sod. The method fol-
lowed by Mr.. Olson merits a
great deal of consideration and
careful study by anyone with
quack upon his farm. This meth
cd is explained as follows:
Quack-grass is often found in
small patches scattered over a
field. If Mr.. Olson has field
infested in this way, he goes
over the field in the spring dig
ging out any patches found, be-
ing especially careful to get all
roots found. This, is done just
before the ground is made ready
for corn. With corn upon such
field good cultivation during
the summer will destroy nearly
all of the quack. There will be
some Of the quack that will es-
cane the cultivator, this is al
ways found in the corn hill where
it was impossible to get at it
with the cultivator. The follow
ing spring the field is gone over
again, and wherever an old corn
hill is found with quack growing
in it, this hill is completely dug
out. The work must be thor
oughly done otherwise some
pieces of the grass will be left
to spread during the summer.
The crop for the second year
is barley. Mr.. Olson has found
that if the field is planted in
wheat that it would be too early
to show up the quack, where by
waiting two or three weeks any
quack that escaped the previous
summer would be showing up in
good shape. Even with these
two years of careful practice,
there is some quack that has
escaped, so in order to get any
that remains in the field, the
third year corn is again planted
and the same process repeated
as mentioned before. If two or
three years of small grain had
followed the first crop of corn,
the quack would be back in the
field just as bad as it was at
first. The corn crop the third
year gets all of the quack that
may nave escaped the OLnef TWO
previous years.
Where the quack-grass has
formed one solid mass, summer
following has been the most
successful means Of destroying
the quack. Mr.. Olson plows the
ground late in the fall; late plow-
ing he has found will kill out
some of the roots by winter
freezing. The blowing is done
shallow, leaving the surface
rough, this will expose more of
the surface to winter freezing.
The common stubble plow is bet
ter for this purpose than the
breaker. Fall blowing puts the
ground in better shape for work
the following spring.