Watermelons are commonly grown and some farmers believe weeds are good for the melons.
However, we figure that weeds do three bad things.
- Drop lots of weed seeds to become a problem in the future
- Compete with melons for water- a real problem in dry season
- Compete with melons for soil fertility- a problem year round.
We established a simple trial with 40 plants.
Twenty were weeded and had kedongdong leaves from a nearby tree spread all around the young watermelons.
Twenty were left alone, no weeding.
Within just a few weeks the farmer was convinced of the value of weeding and the green ma
nure tree leaves.
