Danny when you do a test like this never consider the negative result (in this case clear plastic) a failure or a waste. You have verified to yourself and your viewers that the way to go is Black Plastic. Thank you for running this test and have a Blessed day on your homestead.
Jean martin uses clear plastic to germinate weed seeds in fall, then covers with black plastic from winter to spring to kill germinated seeds and pulls in the spring for planting
Morning Danny and Thank You for taking the time to do this experiment and prove Black plastic is the way to go. I was worried a little when you started this experiment, I have always used the black plastic and have told others to use it over the years as well as here on You Tube. I never thought to do a comparison like you have done. It was nearly 40 years ago when ole Garner told me to use Black plastic when I was first starting my veggie operations in Southern Tennessee. I had weeds knee high, diseases and pests that were just destroying everything over the course of the growing season. Ole Garner watched me struggle for a few months and then one day he came over and looked things over and said boy you are working to hard and not to smart. At first I was getting a little offended, but I held back my anger and let him finish what he was going to tell me anyways like he always did. Garner continued and told me if I did not want to fight the weeds, bugs and diseases to till up all my land in the fall and cover it with the Black plastic.Then come spring lay out where you want your rows and cut the plastic back and plant, but leave the plastic in between the rows. Well at that point I was ready to do anything, so that fall I did as he said. Well he was right, my weed pressure was way less, I had less disease and pests too. So from that year forward I continued it. I took that old man's advice without question, but if I had paid any attention when I moved to the area. I would of noticed he used the black plastic all over his place and I will say his place looked like something that could of been on the cover of Southern Homes and Gardens. But I was 22 years old then and thought I knew everything about modern gardening and farming. Well over the years I would learn time and again I did not know everything and that old man knew a lot that was not in books and taught at the AG Universities. So again I thank you for spending the money and time to prove this out. You and Wanda take care, I will be recommending people stop by your Channel to watch this just like I do for the others things y'all do here. So stay safe and God Bless You and Wanda. Mr. Tom
I use Dish washing detergent with water on my plants as they grow and give them a weekly dose to the end of their growing cycle to deal with the nematodes !
Danny, I live in Alabama (UCLA, the Ugly Corner Of Lower Alabama) in the southeast corner of the state near Dothan. Several years ago I had a terrible problem with nematodes and nut grass in my garden. I took clear plastic (because that is what I had) and put it over the garden, but I raised the plastic with reeds so that it was about 6 inches off of the dirt. I left it for 6 weeks between middle March and the beginning of May. It killed all of the nut grass and it seemed to take care of the nematode problem also. I think that by raising the plastic, it got much hotter than by just laying it on the ground. I don't know how hot the ground got during that time, but I could watch the nut grass being burned under the clear plastic. As soon as I pulled the plastic off, I planted okra and every hill came up. Also, to control nematodes, I never plant the same crops in the same place, especially tomatoes , corn and other plants that are susceptible to nematodes.
I appreciate the test. It never fails, I catch this after the planting is done. I did put straw over it. I guess I should go back and cover the clear plastic with cardboard. Thanks.
Thanks Bro Danny for taking us along on the test journey! Your a great teachers you both are. if I ‘m ever blessed with a area to garden your tips will be included in the growing process.
Thanks for the series adn bringing us along. :) IF someone needs a greenhouse effect, clear plastic can help, but for everything else, seeing the black plastic top it all is an energy and time saver.
the black plastic also makes the earthworms more active neat the surface of the soil. I did this and had a ton of worm castings all over the surface of the soil.
Thank you so much for doing this! And explaining the process you use to prep your soil...it is appreciated more than you know or realize. HAVE A FABULOUS DAY!
thanks for the experiment Danny and Wanda. I will till after I clean out the garden at the end of the season and put black plastic or a dark tarp over it for the winter. I usually rake all the fallen leaves on top of it also and let them break down under the cover for the winter to add something to the soil. Hopefully next spring's garden ( which if same as this year in PA will not be warm enough til May) will have less weed problems.
Thanks! I was wondering this and almost put down some clear plastic I already had. I'll go with the black after seeing this. You saved me time and effort.
The main weed killing effect seems to be from blocking sunlight. The heating effect depends on how much sun you get, the black heats up due to a low reflection, the clear from the greenhouse effect, but this is less important than blocking the sunlight.
Great experiment watching this down the road for a second time Glad I stuck with black plastic for permanent setup to plant through. We use our old clear plastic from ripped greenhouses to warm up the soil but will stick away from planting through
You drive that tractor well enjoyed video... to me it is just common sense....hopefully people learned test it yourself on you own property to see what works best for you. Thank you and God bless
Are you doing a soil sample to see if there is live seed in there? The seeds will need to be tested. Clear plastic and fertilization and watering encouraged sprouting, which is then easier to kill. Solarizarion takes more than 4 weeks of sun. You need to leave it for 8 weeks in the hottest season. What time of years did you do this? Maybe you need to rotate your crops?
The clear plastic has to be raised at least six inches above the soil , seal off the edges with soil , wood etc. It will take several weeks . You most likely will see lots of weeds germinate in the first few weeks. The sun and lack of oxygen will take care of the rest.
I just did the clear plastic...i kinda wish i would of done the other...i am doing annuals in two beds and will do the black later. I can see thru the plastic that it has actually made my grass grow even tho the temps have been 101 to 90... Wish i had seen this earlier.
That grass is zmazingly healthy! What a shocker. Is there time to Black cover it before the frost? Aand would the hear kill the mole crickets? You have some snarly bugs in the Deep South (shudders)
I used clear plastic to kill grass and weeds in my 3700 sq ft garden area in July and August and it worked like a charm for me. Maybe it's the location and type of grass, I'm in the pacific northwest and luckily we had a dry hot summer so this worked great.
Mary- fellow pnw'er here. We are looking to bake out quack (couch) grass that completely overtook an abandoned garden. Was that something you dealt with here?
one other pro for black plastic is it's life span, it can be used and reused for a long time. my take on this is clear plastic is for covering greenhouses black plastic is for covering the ground.
Excellent video thank you so much I want to plant corn but I need to kill the grass first didn't want to rototill at all now I have my answer black plastic thank you!!! Then in a few months ago tilling will be much easier
That was extremely useful for me because I am doing this right now. What I am taking from this is that covering open ground like this with covers of any sort, the heat is not building up enough to kill anything. It's really only the fact that when you block light, things that need light die. This is because the ground can absorb the extra heat almost infinitely. It would be interesting to redo this experiment with raised beds to see if you could get the heat a lot higher. The soil temperature for solarization needs to stay between 122 and 140 degrees for very long periods of time for it to work for both pests and weeds. If you really want everything cooked its needs to get above 140 and stay there and it needs to be at least 6 inches deep. One of the things that I noticed about this experiment was that the edges of the plastic were not covered in soil or sealed to the ground. This would have allowed most of the heat to escape around all the edges. If I were doing this field in either black or clear plastic, I would want to seal those edges next time which would keep the temperature much higher. The other thing is that even if you get that top 6 inches of soil to stay above 140 degrees for 6 weeks, if you then disc that ground below 6 inches, you are going to bring everything that didn't die off below that 6 inches back up to the surface where it can get air and light. My thought is this, disc first, raise the beds, seal plastic on top of those raised beds, cook it off, plant into those raised beds with the plastic in place. There is an attachment that will do all of this for you and put it in rows. I don't know if most coops will have them though.
I'd suggest you check the pH. In my experience, when nematodes get bad in Summer, my soil jumps up 1 or 2 pts to 8, or extreme alkaline. My soil is naturally a bit alkaline, but the nematodes not only destroy the roots, they make the soil unfit for my crops. I've invested in an inexpensive pH probe, since those lab kits can be time consuming. Helps me keep ahead of crop issues in a lot of ways. Thanks also for the info. I didn't know tilling would destroy the nematodes. Perhaps that tiller of mine will get some use again.
Clear plastic works in Texas when it gets really hot, like triple digit temperatures, but it also falls apart much faster than the black plastic. Both I used were 3m thickness. I don't remember how long I left the plastic before it was just falling to pieces as i picked it up, but it wasn't a whole summer. As a side note, I hate Bermuda grass. 😭 😂
Thank you for all your information, I live in Longview Texas for 6 years and I have hard time growing anything now I live in Utah and I went to a gardening class for a couple of years and now I have a great garden, I wish that I had all this helpful information when I was in Texas, love your videos 👍🏼
Well dang. I just spent nearly 80 bucks on 6 mil clear plastic sheeting. I'm hoping that with my hotter climate the clear will still be successful. Still, thanks for sharing this information!
Some years back the University of Wisconsin Extension program did a various hues of colored plastic experiment on tomatoes. If I recall correctly, darkest colors were best but one person surmised that they got a better yield with red. To this day, I don't know if he was kidding or not. I use old carpet, but it's free...
Danny when you do a test like this never consider the negative result (in this case clear plastic) a failure or a waste. You have verified to yourself and your viewers that the way to go is Black Plastic. Thank you for running this test and have a Blessed day on your homestead.
I've also used a tarp. One that has brown or black on one side, and silver on the other side. Place it with the silver side down. Works great!
Jean martin uses clear plastic to germinate weed seeds in fall, then covers with black plastic from winter to spring to kill germinated seeds and pulls in the spring for planting
Morning Danny and Thank You for taking the time to do this experiment and prove Black plastic is the way to go. I was worried a little when you started this experiment, I have always used the black plastic and have told others to use it over the years as well as here on You Tube. I never thought to do a comparison like you have done. It was nearly 40 years ago when ole Garner told me to use Black plastic when I was first starting my veggie operations in Southern Tennessee. I had weeds knee high, diseases and pests that were just destroying everything over the course of the growing season. Ole Garner watched me struggle for a few months and then one day he came over and looked things over and said boy you are working to hard and not to smart. At first I was getting a little offended, but I held back my anger and let him finish what he was going to tell me anyways like he always did. Garner continued and told me if I did not want to fight the weeds, bugs and diseases to till up all my land in the fall and cover it with the Black plastic.Then come spring lay out where you want your rows and cut the plastic back and plant, but leave the plastic in between the rows. Well at that point I was ready to do anything, so that fall I did as he said. Well he was right, my weed pressure was way less, I had less disease and pests too. So from that year forward I continued it. I took that old man's advice without question, but if I had paid any attention when I moved to the area. I would of noticed he used the black plastic all over his place and I will say his place looked like something that could of been on the cover of Southern Homes and Gardens. But I was 22 years old then and thought I knew everything about modern gardening and farming. Well over the years I would learn time and again I did not know everything and that old man knew a lot that was not in books and taught at the AG Universities. So again I thank you for spending the money and time to prove this out. You and Wanda take care, I will be recommending people stop by your Channel to watch this just like I do for the others things y'all do here. So stay safe and God Bless You and Wanda.
Mr. Tom
Thanks Mr Tom
Set the goats to eating that grass, and you'll be ready......
Good story, good lesson Mr.Tom.
actually it works best to use both... black on the ground below, then pop cans or other spacer then clear plastic- really heats up!
I use Dish washing detergent with water on my plants as they grow and give them a weekly dose to the end of their growing cycle to deal with the nematodes !
How exactly do you mix and apply?
Thank you for this because websites on this process said to use clear. I’m glad I watched your video!!
And I will watch too ‼️(As soon as I learn how to use this phone)
Thank you for the information. I'm going to try gardening agian,❤️🙏
Danny, I live in Alabama (UCLA, the Ugly Corner Of Lower Alabama) in the southeast corner of the state near Dothan. Several years ago I had a terrible problem with nematodes and nut grass in my garden. I took clear plastic (because that is what I had) and put it over the garden, but I raised the plastic with reeds so that it was about 6 inches off of the dirt. I left it for 6 weeks between middle March and the beginning of May. It killed all of the nut grass and it seemed to take care of the nematode problem also. I think that by raising the plastic, it got much hotter than by just laying it on the ground. I don't know how hot the ground got during that time, but I could watch the nut grass being burned under the clear plastic. As soon as I pulled the plastic off, I planted okra and every hill came up. Also, to control nematodes, I never plant the same crops in the same place, especially tomatoes , corn and other plants that are susceptible to nematodes.
Thanks, Danny, just going to try my first tarp on my new Tennessee property, starting from a lawn.
I appreciate the test. It never fails, I catch this after the planting is done. I did put straw over it. I guess I should go back and cover the clear plastic with cardboard. Thanks.
I appreciate the test! Looking for some black silage tarps now to start prepping my garden area.
I have been searching for an answer to this question and no one, NO ONE, has done it the way you did. Thank you so so so much.
Thanks Bro Danny for taking us along on the test journey! Your a great teachers you both are. if I ‘m ever blessed with a area to garden your tips will be included in the growing process.
Thanks for the series adn bringing us along. :) IF someone needs a greenhouse effect, clear plastic can help, but for everything else, seeing the black plastic top it all is an energy and time saver.
Thanks. Thought that because no sunlight.
the black plastic also makes the earthworms more active neat the surface of the soil. I did this and had a ton of worm castings all over the surface of the soil.
I put double (folded) layer of least expensive clear tarp over my raised beds for about 5 weeks in spring to sterilize my soil. It did work well.
Thank you so much for doing this! And explaining the process you use to prep your soil...it is appreciated more than you know or realize. HAVE A FABULOUS DAY!
thanks for the experiment Danny and Wanda. I will till after I clean out the garden at the end of the season and put black plastic or a dark tarp over it for the winter. I usually rake all the fallen leaves on top of it also and let them break down under the cover for the winter to add something to the soil. Hopefully next spring's garden ( which if same as this year in PA will not be warm enough til May) will have less weed problems.
Thanks for the upload. I also used black plastic as it cuts off the sunlight.
read about elbon rye and mustard for winter
Another good lesson.
This has been very surprising and helpful DSH. You dedicated a lot of time to this experiment for all your followers. Thank you. 🦋💜
Thank you for that excellent test! I was going to use the clear plastic this year, till I watched your video! Thank you and God Bless!
Thanks! I was wondering this and almost put down some clear plastic I already had. I'll go with the black after seeing this. You saved me time and effort.
HELLO DANNY AND WANDA, I THINK ITS INTERESTING THAT YOU PROVED THAT THE BLACK PLASTIC WAS BETTER TO USE. I LOVE YOU BOTH, GOD BLESS YOU BOTH.
Great experiment Danny. Thanks for sharing your results!
THANK YOU FOR YOUR EXPERIMENT, AND THE TIME TO LEARN AS WELL TO SHARE WITH US!! :)
Good video. I'm using black plastic from here on out
It is a very useful and very important information about Black Plastic Mulch.
Hope you get it done and get rid of those root eaters.
Exactly what I needed to know, thank you for posting!
Thanks for doing this experiment. Up here in the Pacific Northwest I haven't seen mole crickets before.
Dark Age Growing I’ve never seen them things here in Ohio either. Creepy little bugger. LOL
They love to come to lights at night
Thank you for doing this experiment!!
Thanks for your experiment.
Thank you both so, so much for doing this experiment. These results make a huge impact on what I will use.
The dirt look so soft. I bet it smell good too.
I am so glad i found this channel, i am learning so much.
Black plastic is all we use here in East Tennessee.....it's every farmer/homesteaders must have!
Very interesting.
Thanks from Ireland
Awesome! Just the video I was looking for! Thank you for creating and uploading!
I got the same results. Black tarps is the way to go. Great video.
The main weed killing effect seems to be from blocking sunlight. The heating effect depends on how much sun you get, the black heats up due to a low reflection, the clear from the greenhouse effect, but this is less important than blocking the sunlight.
you can use the clear plastic to fores the seed of weeds to grow then remve them beforthey set seed
Great experiment watching this down the road for a second time Glad I stuck with black plastic for permanent setup to plant through. We use our old clear plastic from ripped greenhouses to warm up the soil but will stick away from planting through
You drive that tractor well enjoyed video... to me it is just common sense....hopefully people learned test it yourself on you own property to see what works best for you. Thank you and God bless
Great info thanks
Are you doing a soil sample to see if there is live seed in there? The seeds will need to be tested. Clear plastic and fertilization and watering encouraged sprouting, which is then easier to kill.
Solarizarion takes more than 4 weeks of sun. You need to leave it for 8 weeks in the hottest season.
What time of years did you do this? Maybe you need to rotate your crops?
Yes! It is pure science! Glad you discovered it the way I did. Love when you make these videos .
The clear plastic has to be raised at least six inches above the soil , seal off the edges with soil , wood etc. It will take several weeks . You most likely will see lots of weeds germinate in the first few weeks. The sun and lack of oxygen will take care of the rest.
I wonder about that. Glade to see this experiment. Thanks Dannie and Wanda. Wanda sorry if my auto correct misspell your name.
Homestead Science!!! I love it.
What a useful video. Thank you, Danny!
Very helpful thank you
Thanks DSH. I'll be using black from now on.
That was very interesting. Thank you. God bless
Just found you’re channel. It’s amazing the info. Thank you
I suggest tilling in basamid n wetting before covering with black plastic. It will sterilization of soil in 14 days or so.
Thank you for creating this important content. God bless you.
Thank you for posting
Yep
Great video , thx for showing, never heard of those crickets, good to know
Looks very good
here in SC we have used black plastic to kill kudzu, it works well for that.
great experiment we use black plastic here . God bless
Excellent...black all the way
I just did the clear plastic...i kinda wish i would of done the other...i am doing annuals in two beds and will do the black later.
I can see thru the plastic that it has actually made my grass grow even tho the temps have been 101 to 90...
Wish i had seen this earlier.
Thanks
good experiment. thanks for doing it.
That grass is zmazingly healthy! What a shocker. Is there time to Black cover it before the frost? Aand would the hear kill the mole crickets? You have some snarly bugs in the Deep South (shudders)
Would chicken eat those nimitoad(?).Thanks for sharing, I put clear plastic under my pallets to hold firewood, next year I'll buy the black plastic.
I used clear plastic to kill grass and weeds in my 3700 sq ft garden area in July and August and it worked like a charm for me. Maybe it's the location and type of grass, I'm in the pacific northwest and luckily we had a dry hot summer so this worked great.
Mary- fellow pnw'er here. We are looking to bake out quack (couch) grass that completely overtook an abandoned garden. Was that something you dealt with here?
one other pro for black plastic is it's life span, it can be used and reused for a long time. my take on this is clear plastic is for covering greenhouses black plastic is for covering the ground.
Nothing is as satisfying as seeing dirt turned over.
Thanks Danny and Wanda. You confirmed my experience with solarization using clear plastic. It did not work. 😊
Yes, thank you for this experiment. Very useful.
Excellent video thank you so much I want to plant corn but I need to kill the grass first didn't want to rototill at all now I have my answer black plastic thank you!!! Then in a few months ago tilling will be much easier
That was extremely useful for me because I am doing this right now. What I am taking from this is that covering open ground like this with covers of any sort, the heat is not building up enough to kill anything. It's really only the fact that when you block light, things that need light die. This is because the ground can absorb the extra heat almost infinitely. It would be interesting to redo this experiment with raised beds to see if you could get the heat a lot higher. The soil temperature for solarization needs to stay between 122 and 140 degrees for very long periods of time for it to work for both pests and weeds. If you really want everything cooked its needs to get above 140 and stay there and it needs to be at least 6 inches deep. One of the things that I noticed about this experiment was that the edges of the plastic were not covered in soil or sealed to the ground. This would have allowed most of the heat to escape around all the edges. If I were doing this field in either black or clear plastic, I would want to seal those edges next time which would keep the temperature much higher. The other thing is that even if you get that top 6 inches of soil to stay above 140 degrees for 6 weeks, if you then disc that ground below 6 inches, you are going to bring everything that didn't die off below that 6 inches back up to the surface where it can get air and light.
My thought is this, disc first, raise the beds, seal plastic on top of those raised beds, cook it off, plant into those raised beds with the plastic in place. There is an attachment that will do all of this for you and put it in rows. I don't know if most coops will have them though.
You guys ever solorize the soil to kill weeds seed or crab grass?
The different areas are shared differently, so as a test it may not work, though black is better clearly since it denies weeds the vital sunlight.
Wonderful info Danny. Thanks so much for sharing !!!
this is good information to know. hmm! thank you
I'd suggest you check the pH. In my experience, when nematodes get bad in Summer, my soil jumps up 1 or 2 pts to 8, or extreme alkaline. My soil is naturally a bit alkaline, but the nematodes not only destroy the roots, they make the soil unfit for my crops. I've invested in an inexpensive pH probe, since those lab kits can be time consuming. Helps me keep ahead of crop issues in a lot of ways.
Thanks also for the info. I didn't know tilling would destroy the nematodes. Perhaps that tiller of mine will get some use again.
Maybe if you put up an electric fence and put some chickens in the area they would eat the crickets and clean up the area a bit
Thanks Danny
I'm guessing the black plastic would be good clean way for killing off a lawn/weeds before re-seeding.
How was this more to do with heat than it was the light?
All the heat test we did up till the last one was way hotter than the clear.
I wonder if you took into account the amount of direct sunlight thisnplot got. Clear plastic killed my grass in about 4 hours!
WOW that was a surprise
Very educational experiment. Thank you for doing it.
Thanks for sharing guys, as always. ❤️
Jenn, Seven Sprouts Farmstead
Clear plastic works in Texas when it gets really hot, like triple digit temperatures, but it also falls apart much faster than the black plastic. Both I used were 3m thickness. I don't remember how long I left the plastic before it was just falling to pieces as i picked it up, but it wasn't a whole summer. As a side note, I hate Bermuda grass. 😭 😂
Thank you for all your information, I live in Longview Texas for 6 years and I have hard time growing anything now I live in Utah and I went to a gardening class for a couple of years and now I have a great garden, I wish that I had all this helpful information when I was in Texas, love your videos 👍🏼
Mole crickets look like good fish bait
Well dang. I just spent nearly 80 bucks on 6 mil clear plastic sheeting. I'm hoping that with my hotter climate the clear will still be successful. Still, thanks for sharing this information!
How thick were the two types of plastic? This is great info! I am planning on doing a lot of solarization April - May to get rid of leaf miners.
4 mil poly.
Some years back the University of Wisconsin Extension program did a various hues of colored plastic experiment on tomatoes. If I recall correctly, darkest colors were best but one person surmised that they got a better yield with red. To this day, I don't know if he was kidding or not. I use old carpet, but it's free...
let us know how the tilling it up all fall worked for getting them under control.
Black is the only way to go!