Weed as Fertilizer

An increase in weed growth indicates better soil health. But, weeds are considered as competitors 
to plants and there is a tendency to remove, throw or burn them. Owing to their longer 
decomposition time, weeds are often destroyed. However, with increasing awareness on organic
way of farming, weeds are increasingly being used for making organic manure.
Weed as Fertilizer

I tried a method which could convert weeds to organic form within 15 days. The method is as follows:
Collected about 25 kg weed from my farm land, wastelands, roadsides etc. Then mixed them with 200gm jaggery, 200 gm salt, 200 gm. tamarind in 100 lit of water and left to decompose in a drum for 15 days. This mixture was rotated once in every three days. In 15 days the mixture was emanating a bad odour and was then converted to liquid form.

When this liquid manure was used for vegetable crops, the growth was very luxurious. Though this indicated that the manure had high nutrient content, but still I wanted to know its nutrient composition so as to recommend to other farmers. So I took one liter of the liquid manure and got it tested and was amazed to know that the manure was high in nutrients as indicated in the box.

I feel that it is the best manure among the various manures I have used. I feel that farmers instead of destroying weeds should make use of it, thus increasing yields and also reducing costs on fertilizers.

Farmers with large farms can prepare this in big tanks and attach sprinklers to it. This will help in releasing the liquid manure in drops to the soils, thus avoiding wastage.


Characteristics Results
(mg/lit)
pH 7.39
Nitrogen 32.2
Phosphorus 6.20
Potash 2000
Calcium 260
Magnesium 189.7
Zinc 0.24
Iron 0.60

Reference
http://leisaindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/WEED-AS-SOURCE-OF-WEALTH.pdf