Corn Gluten for Organic Weed Control
Wednesday March 22, 2006
Reader Laurence J. Belosevic mentions corn gluten as an alternative to chemical herbicides, and I thought others might be interested in learning more about using corn gluten for organic weed control. EarthEasy states that "As a weed suppressant, corn gluten acts as a natural 'pre-emergent' - it inhibits seed germination by drying out a seed as soon as it cracks open to sprout." I found another good source of information about corn gluten on green-talk.com.
Comments
Living in Arizona, we do a lot of landscaping with different kinds of rocks. But we do have the monsoons down here & weeds & wild grass are a terrible hassle, especially for someone like me who is disabled. Any ideas?
Try landscape fabric.
Peggy, I also lived in Arizona and used 10 mill black plastic directly on the ground prior to putting the rocks in place. I had over an acre and it was all covered with this method. You must overlap the plastic at least 3-4 inches. Monsoon rains run off and any plants you do put in will be watered by the condensation under the plastic.
Plastic inhibits the water from entering the ground, flushing the purpose of the monsoon away. You could try 1/4″ of newspapers or cardboard. It provides organic material for the ground and prevents weeds.
Re corn gluten What if the corn gluten is genetically modified (61% is) I am concerned that this could cause some problems. It may be worse than the herbicide that we wish to avoid. It can get into waterways thus fish, effect pets etc. Any thoughts?
I don’t know much about that, but I guess you could just take the extra step and try to make sure the corn gluten you’re using hasn’t been genetically modified. If enough people become interested in this sort of thing, it will probably become easier to find such products.