Slide presentation from Wendy Krupnick, SRJC Sustainable Ag Instructor, about green alternatives to Roundup / glyphosate use. Delivered at the Petaluma Community Guild's public forum — Glyphosate: Health Impacts & Green Alternatives; March 9, 2016 at the Petaluma Seed Bank

1. Alternatives to RoundUp in the
Home and Urban Landscape
Wendy Krupnick 2016

2. Alternatives can:
• Be beautiful
• Provide habitat
• Sequester carbon
• Absorb and retain rainwater
• Be edible
• Improve soil

3. Get to know your weeds
Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
1. Identify 2. Monitor 3. Evaluate options 4. Use cultural
controls 5. If needed, use least harmful material controls
6. Prevention

4.
Consider allowing “good” weeds to grow, at least for
a limited time.
Edibles – Eg. chickweed, Miner’s lettuce, lambsquarters

5. Soil building weeds – harvest for
compost; roots loosen soil
Eg. mustard/wild radish, mallow,
Blooms can feed
beneficial insects
Eg. fennel

6. Alternative herbicides (kill plants):
• Vinegar (horticultural strength –
10-20% acidity)
• Hot water (not recommended)
• Biosafe (fatty acids)
• Ecosmart (2-PEP + clove oil)
• Avenger (orange oil)

7. Alternative practices to kill
weeds:
• Flaming
• Blasting
• Hand pull or hoe
• Machine tilling/disking

8. Weed suppression
• Corn gluten
• Mowing, weed whacking,
grazing (especially for grasses)

9. Weed prevention –
Mulches, non-organic:
Durable woven fabric.

10. Mulches NOT recommended:
Plastic, weed barrier, small rock

11. Weed prevention - Mulches:
Organic materials – Must be several
inches thick and renewed
periodically. Recycles carbon,
adding it to the soil and increasing
water retention.

12. Leaves –
Can mow
to chop
up
Wood
chips

13. Weed prevention – Ground covering plants

15. Several
manzanita &
ceanothus
varieties
spread
widely

16. ‘Bees Bliss’
salvia can
spread 20’;
Creeping
thyme
spreads a
few inches

17. Municipal programs:
• City of Santa Cruz – Goats, mowing, flaming,
mulching, targeted drip irrigation (no
watering weeds), ground cover plants, rock
hardscapes.
• Santa Cruz County banned RoundUp for
roadside weed control in 2005
• Portland began Pesticide Free Parks in 2004
• Seattle began maintaining 14 parks without
pesticides in 2001; currently 22 parks use no
pesticides
• Boulder CO banned RoundUp in public places
in 2011

18. Resources for more information:
Managing Healthy Sports Fields: A Guide to
Using Organic Materials for Low Maintenance
and Chemical Free Playing Fields, Paul Sachs
The Wild Wisdom of Weeds, Katrina Blair
Non-toxic Weed Control -
www.birc.org/Winter2003.pdf
Weed ID -
www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/TOOLS/TURF/PESTS/
weedkey.html
How to Hand weed effectively!
www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/TOOLS/TURF/PESTS/
weedhand.html