Dandelions are Smart

Won't want that modification emigrating on to farms, effecting grazing animals?

We have them in Minnesota, but "the man" takes care of them there. I think they spray. They started cutting the grass at our place last week. This is the earliest they have ever begun mowing there. The ice is also all gone from the lake, another first. But, I digress into global warming.

"Some gardeners are now using corn gluten meal because it acts similar to pre-emergent herbicides by inhibiting weed seeds from germinating. Corn gluten meal also contains a source of Nitrogen fertilizer. For best results, apply 20 pounds of corn gluten meal per 1,000 square feet and lightly water into lawn. Be sure to not apply these pre-emergent herbicides to areas where you have planted seed or plan to plant seeds."

Good Time for Lawn Weed Control : Small Farms news ...

We never have any in our home lawn in Arizona, but tons of them at work in our grass. I don't know why that is.

Maybe the weeds have a gluten sensitivity issue, and they die of diarrhea?

There are several varieties for just this purpose...Here's one...I guess it depends on your zone...

No mow grass

Here in Lubbock, we just wait for the La Nina season to kick in, then we have "no mo' grass"!

The consumer weed sprays work extremely well on dandelions. Just buy one of those bottles of broad-leaf weed sprays you can connect to a water hose and spray your lawn.

It's stuff like crabgrass and small-leaf weeds like speedwell that are tough to eradicate.

The worst enemy around here,worse than dandelions,is the specially designed grass for use by the state on highway shoulders.

Nothing kills it.

If you mow it,it ducks the blade by bending over,and stands up behind you.

You have to mow in both directions to get it.

Thus it takes twice as long to mow.

A mulching blade(with notches,that supposedly cuts each clipping 3 times) helps,but not 100%

Then it grows back faster than your lawn grass,so it will require mowing more frequently.

It has a V shaped seed pod on top,and I call it Victory Grass.

You look out on your lawn the next day after mowing,and there it is,giving you it's V for Victory sign.

The wind and birds carry the seed form the highway shoulders to your yard.

Nothing kills it that will not also kill your lawn.

Gotta just live with it.

Think of the exercise you are getting by mowing!

I think riding a lawn mower is an offense to mother nature.

A notched blade to 'cut the clippings three times' sounds like a gimmick. If you're going to mulch the grass, you need a plug in the discharge chute, so the clippings STAY in the cutting chamber until they're too small to be hit by the blades.

A couple of years ago I got a new cordless electric mower from Sears, and it uses two small blades on independent counter-rotating motors instead of a single giant blade. That one seems to do a nice job on the grass. Granted, it wasn't the blade technology I was looking at when getting the mower, it was the battery technology: with the smaller motors and blades, it does not need the huge, heavy lead-acid battery ti run it, and works off a pair of Lithium-something-or-other batteries. These batteries are light enough to carry in one hand (both in one hand if you've got the skills to balance a flat-faced brick on another flat-faced brick), and only take a few hours to charge up from empty. One battery is usually enough to mow my Chicago standard 'lot and a half'.

Gimmick or not,the clippings were much finer than with an ordinary blade,and most

were deflected downward not outward.

The notched blade supposedly creates a vortex that recirculates the clippings in order to cut them multiple times.

It will produce finer clippings and propel them downward instead of outward.

A high lift bagger blade is designed to propel them outward into a bag system.

I even restricted, then blocked the discharge chute to try to cut the "Victory Grass"

but it made it worse.

It simply bends over with the airflow,before the blade makes contact, and avoids the blade.

I even tried one high lift blade,and two mulching blades on same deck, then 2 high

lift,one mulching,at various positions on the deck,to no avail.

Mowing in opposite direction seems to be the only effective method.

I thought the high lift blade would pull the stalk of grass into the mulching blades,but

it seems the grass has a built in resistance to a bladed mower.

The state highway department has Flail Mowers,which are a roller,with free

swinging 90 degree cutters attached,they seem to be very effective at cutting

it,probably due to the rollers rotating opposite to the travel direction.

Maybe I will experiment with making a flail cutter for my yard...hmmm....

Rent a sheepmower or a goatmower from Lyndor Industries.

Yeah, mow, mulch and fertilize in one easy step. Speaking of steps, just be careful where you step on the freshly 'mown' lawn.

It's an example of coevolution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coevolution

Like bumblebees and flowers, dandelions and lawnmowers have evolved together in the ecosystem.

Evolution requires multiple generations to occur..this happens more or less overnight, to the same plant.

I think it is kin to the response of a plant to pruning instead of evolution.

Someone once said according to evolution,pedestrians should be able to jump 10 feet high and run 60 MPH.

My sympathies go to the North American O'Possom,whose instinct for threat is to play dead.

They freeze and play dead at the sight or sound of an approaching car;then they don't have to pretend anymore.

I guess,eventually,they will evolve to a faster species,or go extinct.

I was just jesting about evolution. You're likely right about the pruning.

Too bad it doesn't work that way when I prune my holly bushes. When I prune off the branches that are sticking out, they grow even faster at that point.

But the whole process of response that enables that took a fair time to evolve.

Yes, but they have not evolved to survive the goats! Everyone should have the goats at least once in a lifetime! My grandfather had a case of the goats once in eastern Gaines County, Texas. They grazed on top of the Model T, on top of the two-story farm house, the barn, etc. Not a blade of grass within 100 yards of the home.

I still have bad dreams about goats.

They are as athletic as chimpanzees,and will climb almost anything.

I have seen them standing on top of fence posts.

I have seen Billy Goats holding up the electric fence with their horns,to allow the young kids to escape.

They take great delight in showing cows how to escape.

They will eat crops all day long,and get back in their pen when they hear your truck coming,acting like nothing happened.

They love to stomp on anything that will make noise,like car or truck hoods,metal roofs,(how did they get up there?) they will butt horses and cows when bored,and really love flower beds.

The Billies will urinate on their own beards...this is their cologne,and they think it smells good.

Do not get too close or you will get a dose "Eau de Hircum" as well.

My conclusion is:""The only way to beat a goat,is to eat a goat."

It is best to castrate the billies a few months before harvesting them;it improves the taste.

Kinda like venison,but more gamey.

Outside my office. The tops of the blossoms are about an inch high.

Get busy! Make wine out of the blossoms, salad out of the greens. Don't let them go to seed, but even then, make parachute toys.

I'll get right on that, tomorrow.

I may have to do the same--I'll inspect my yard and see. A little propaganda along the line of dandelions = arugula helps a lot, as any rocket scientist knows....

I guarantee that if a commercial market is found for them,you will not be able to grow them without spending $1000 per acres on fertilizer,chemicals,and special weed killer.

The wild variety would soon be replaced by the special GMO variety,focusing on appearance,size,and marketability.

Monsatanus would come out with a patented seed that would make all wind-blown offspring from the seed belong to them.

You would be forbidden to harvest any volunteer plants from your yard,even for personal use.

Then a special expensive harvester would be needed to gather,them,etc,etc.

This is what has happened to a lot of our fruits and vegetables.

50 years ago,strawberries were small,and VERY SWEET,no hollow centers,and a taste that cannot be found in any commercial variety today.

Tomatoes and apples likewise.

Very hard to find a good tomato or apple,or any other fruit,not to mention beef,or pork.

An old saying:"Don't eat what the dog won't eat!" applies here.

I had rather have an apple that has a worm hole in it.

"Don't eat what the bugs don't eat" applies as well.

At least,I know it is edible,and I can avoid the worm....most of the time.

I have probably eaten a bunch of worms in my younger days,and It hasn't hurt me too bad.

The old prospectors would not drink from a water hole that had no bugs in it.They knew it was poison.

I ran around barefoot,stepping in all kinds of animal manure,all day long,and seldom was sick.

Going to the doctor for allergies or a cold was unheard of.

You only went to a doctor if you were on death's door;like rattlesnake or cottonmouth bite,broken bones that couldn't be set right at home, such as falling out of trees or haylofts or being kicked by a mule.

IMHO, people are living too clean nowadays.

The immune system is now lethargic and unaccustomed to a good fight.

I think periodic battles,like a cold, are good for the immune system,it keeps it fit,like a warm up fight for a boxer.

A worm in an apple is not half as bad as half a worm in an apple!

Good chuckles this early in the day! Thanks. Surely you are correct in your assertions.

I remember when as a child, we used to go to Ruidoso, NM and enjoy the mountains, green grass, and trees with a fragrance that can only be described as heavenly. The wild strawberries found growing all over the hillsides were the best anyone has ever tasted, and not a moldy, dirty one in the lot. We could just sit and "graze" on these all day! Then we would go to the horse races, and win/lose, but come out with enough to pay for the trip more often than not. My Dad had a way of knowing horse flesh, and could somehow "smell" a winner. Pissed me off he would never allow me to have a horse on our farm (Government check from set aside land forbade it).

I do believe the Land of Enchantment (as I experienced it in my youth) was aptly named. Will travel there in my retirement, if I reach the goal line.

Hey, if we could just teach dandelions to stalk and attack terrorists we could have a new weapon in the arsenal against ISIS. Surely, there is something we can chemically engineer (then GMO) into the dandelion, so we plant the GMO dandelions in areas where terrorists sit around plotting their evil nefarious plans. It should have their eyes watering, and their noses running swiftly, and their skin crawling (even more than the lice already present), and this would make it extremely dangerous to handle the stuff they have been using, one slip up, one sneeze, and premature detonation. A good place for a drone emitting a lot of static electricity, don't ya think? Think of a swarm of drones about the size and shape of honey bees flying into an old garage somewhere that is being used as an ad hoc bomb factory. I would love to film the looks on their faces about one microsecond before their last microsecond.

when you "top" a plant..........nevermind

You know you can eat dandelions. They aren't bad either. The good thing is they pull pretty easy and once you've pulled them all, they aren't that hard to stay ahead of them. You can also take them out with Weed'n'Feed.

So do you eat the entire plant, roots and all, or just the above ground parts: base, leaves, stalk, flower, and/or seed pods?

My wifey likes to harvest leaves and seed pods and feed these to our pet birds.

The greens.

It's an effect common in plants.

The trimming or pruning, or grazing sends a signal down the plant that says; 'Do what you were doing, but do it lower down.'

many plants grow straggly if left, and thicken up with pruning.

Interestingly there has been a lot of debate about the correct techniques for pruning, especially roses, but I remember seeing a side by side comparison of correctly pruned roses and chainsaw pruned. The chainsaw pruned plants produced a far better display.

cnc jim

Nature does seem to dislike a clean cut.

A bush that has been browsed by an animal will recover quicker than one that has been cut.

Broken twigs will root quicker than cut ones.

There are even documented cases of children regrowing parts of severed digits if the wound is not surgically repaired and stitched.

This has occurred in children mainly younger than 12,and in very poor regions, like the Appalachians where medical help is not readily available.

Scientists are studying this to try to use it for entire appendages like arms,legs,etc.

But why on earth would a leg amputee want to grow back a finger?

That is interesting.

And I bet they grow shorter than the original.

Dandelions need only grow a fraction higher than the surrounding plants.

Shorten the grass and you shorten the dandelion.