As a consequence of our changing climate Australia is experiencing its third consecutive year of La Niña. Another wet, weedy summer is upon us, and as landscape stewards we are an integral part of the response to the climate crisis.
Reducing nitrification of our water, building soil health and preserving biodiversity is where we take action. It’s a paradigm shift in choices.
A paradigm shift requires a change in viewpoint.
Organic weed control
Weed management, when viewed from a holistic, ecological management perspective, is part of managing soils, building soil biology and subsequently sequestering carbon. Healthy soils support the growth and proliferation of vegetation. Nature always fills a void with a plant. In the case where that plant is undesirable from a landscape management point of view, we call it a weed, and the practice employed to control that weed will either have a nurturing effect on the soil biology or a negative one.
Organic farmers recognise this and build soil through their practices, excluding toxins from their methodology.
Exposure of children and pets to herbicides, spray drift, off-target damage, increasing work, health and safety requirements and employee objections to continued exposure to toxins are some of the motivators driving the move to organic weed control. For decades now, chemicals have been the economic choice, but the market is changing. Descriptors such as #toxinfree, #sustainable, #organic, #chem-free are tags used by contractors promoting their sustainability differentiators to tap into the growing market for organic weed control.
ROI
Parks managers, property managers and landscape maintenance contractors are being attracted to work with Weedtechnics as its Satusteam™ machines deliver the unique combination of boiling water and saturated steam – Satusteam – which destroys all soft-leaved and stemmed vegetation on contact, fast and efficiently. With a quick change of applicator heads, the unit turns into a Satusteam cleaner of outdoor assets, so the Weedtechnics machines have multiple uses.
That’s why Weedtechnics customers find they have a quick return on investment.
After treatment, cooked weeds are quickly broken down, increasing microbial activity and releasing available nutrients. This in turn enhances the quality of the soil by increasing organic matter and helps desirable plants with reduced competition and more available nutrients.
Your plants grow with new vigour!
Long-term benefits
The process of using hydrothermal weed control also has an effect on the seed bank. The seeds sitting in the top centimetre of soil will either be cooked by the heat and water, or germinate. Either way, the seed bank reduces with each subsequent treatment, resulting in long-term management of problem weeds and reducing costs over time.
Residual results for weed control using Satusteam are similar to glyphosate. Programming for weed control using Satusteam is more reliable than chemicals as it is not weather effected, there is no withholding period, and there’s no concerns about rain and wind moving chemicals off target.
Imagine a system where your weed management is improving your presentation standard and soil health without risk of chemical exposure in a way where your costs reduce over time. Then you will have the ongoing enjoyment of having turned an ecologically and health-hazardous task into a seriously productive, safe and satisfying process.
That is the Satusteam solution.
If any of this resonates with you, contact Weedtechnics to continue the conversation.