Source
Weed 'Em and Reap Part 2: Reduced tillage strategies for vegetable cropping systems [DVD]. A. Stone. 2006. Oregon State University Dept. of Horticulture. Corvallis, Oregon. Available at: http://www.weedemandreap.org (verified 17 Dec 2008).
Featuring
Ron Morse, Virginia Tech. Blacksburg, VA.
Audio Text
This is the Alamo Mott flail mower. We’ve been using it for 10 or 15 years on the farm. We originally used it just for flailing. Then, I, by accident one day discovered that it would roll. So we either flail or roll or sometimes both as necessary. What rolls really well is very mature cereal grains, like rye, wheat, barley. We’ve had excellent success year after year with a combination of pure rye or rye/vetch. The millets really roll well. We mix them with soybeans or cowpeas. You have to make sure that the millet and the cowpeas or soybeans are into the mature stage, preferably flowering. If you do that and can roll them with even the flail mower here, they will stay down with very little re-greening. Some legumes also roll very well, like mature crimson clover. Hairy vetch does not because it needs to be crimped. We’re really sold on the combination of flail mowing and rolling. This is economical because it does both. We have had good luck as long as our cover crops are mature.