[permaculture-oceania] Weed Steamers

[Meadows, Joel]

Dear Fern and others,

I was just having a conversation with some friends about this when this posting arrived. I have never seen weed steaming done, but if I knew what the head of the spraying device was like I'd be keen to make one. 

We use a pressure cooker to provide steam to our steam knife when we do honey harvesting in autumn. We get about an hour of steam from it before it needs refilling. This cooker could easily be mounted on to a frame with a small gas bottle and burner attached that could provide mobile heat. With the right kind of hose and head attached it would be easy to use as a small scale weed steamer.

Does anyone know what the handles and heads of these weed steamers look like? And can you describe it or draw it? Also how does the process work? Does it only work on 'softer' plants? What about woody ones or ones with rhizomes, bulbs or crowns? How is the steam applied? Do you have to linger on each plant or can it be like steam cleaning carpet?

Happy to do a trial one if I can be supplied with the above info.

 

Thanks,

 

Joel Meadows.


________________________________

From: permaculture-oceania-bounces at lists.cat.org.au on behalf of Fern Ockerby
Sent: Mon 11/09/2006 4:27 PM
To: permaculture-oceania at lists.cat.org.au
Subject: [permaculture-oceania] Weed Steamers


Has anyone had experience with weed steamers?  Does anyone know if there are any suppliers or manufacturers of them in Australia?  
It maybe a more environmentally positive solution than the excessive chemical spraying and painting used currently by councils and Landcare groups.


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