Anybody have experience using propane to weed and recommend unit?
Thanks a lot
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I have one of the torches. It was fun to play with, but I bought it for the orchard and it was not quite so good for that. It did the job (sometimes too well with fire getting away from me), but what I found was it didn’t kill anything. It all came back and the ash almost acted like fertilizer.
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Pretty much a torch is a torch is a torch. The trick is to not just flambé the top but to really torch it so the root gets properly shocked. Else things like dandelions will come back.
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I started flame weeding after we bought our house in 2011.
I purchased a model from a pretty well known discount importer. I don’t believe that they carry that exact one any longer. It has worked okay. Mine connects to a 20 pound propane tank. It has a push button ignitor, which is good because the flame will blow out pretty frequently. It has a knob to control the idle flame, as well as a squeeze trigger for bursting. It has needed some repairs more recently. The plastic for that knob spun off of the stem of the valve, and I haven’t made a repair, so I just use the squeeze trigger. The rubber hose that runs between the gas fitting on the tank end and the nozzle end that you hold in your hand started cracking and leaking propane. A longer piece of 300 PSI hose from a real hardware store fixed that issue and allowed me to leave the tank for longer periods before having to pick it up and carry it to the next work zone. I use the tool for starting campfires a lot as well (I don’t use any liquid accelerants and I haven’t for years, using propane to start a fire is so much safer).
I highly recommend getting one that connects to a 20 pound propane tank, and one with the push button ignitor.
There’s one company that makes flame weeders similar to mine, a pretty big name one. I looked into buying one of their products when mine was starting to show signs of deterioration, but I experienced sticker shock when I saw what they wanted for their product. I wouldn’t shy away from an inexpensive import, there’s nothing special about the technology. I think $60 is about the most I would want to pay for one. Anything more and I would be building my own, but I do that sort of creative fabrication just for giggles anyways.
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Mine came from Harbour Freight and was like $30. I used it for fence and spot work. Don might be right about really laying on the flame, but for something like fence line your going to sail through some gas tanks.
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Thanks everyone
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The style of torch that I use is good for spot use. It can still be used for wider swathes of area, but if you are trying to flame the little weed sprouts that come up between rows in a garden and you have a large enough garden to justify it, then there is a different product that I would be recommending.
I couldn’t justify spending the coin to buy one but hindsight is 20/20. I ended up taking a used propane head that goes under a large turkey fryer and inverting it, welding up a frame, fabricating a couple of heat shields, mounting it on a wheel, creating a dead-man switch to eliminate the chance of a runaway flame situation (I just walk away from the machine and the gas is automatically cut), and I have determined that my time spent in the creation was rather wasted. The guys who developed the one in the picture have a far superior product to my one-off. Mine will kill the weeds, but I have to move much more slowly, and I use up a lot more propane in the process.
When you are working with certain types of weeds you will discover that they don’t require all that much heat to kill, so you can move through them more quickly. Harder to learn is whether a particular weed is better left uncut before the application of heat. An almost given is that the longer you can wait after a rain has occurred, the better. The less moisture that is present in the stems the easier it is to cook the weed, which is generally what I am trying to accomplish. I am not trying to turn it into ash. If I do take it that far then I’ve likely moved too slowly with the flame. All I want to do with most species of weeds is to flambé them and move on.
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I have a weed flamer but I have not used it for several years … as Robert states the weeds came back too quickly. Mine is the simple one hooked up right to the propane tank, which I bungie to an old backpack.
This spring I may try it on my lesser celandine, that stuff goes like crazy early and then fades out. Maybe if I nail the tops a couple times early the grass around it will be able to out-complete it.
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I’ve used my handheld weed torch to get rid of moles in the past by blowing up their tunnels 
also another use for a weed torch and it’s effective. But dangerous though.
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Not sure what your goal is… but if you burn weeds… you might end up with better growing weeds. I did that mistake years ago. So if you can wait and burn when dormant and safely to do so… then after it cools down and before snow or rain…spread what you want to grow instead like natives or pollinators… that will give them a supercharge of a start. Im starting some chicory in a similar way this Fall.
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I love my propane torch, but a simple singe will not kill the weeds. I fry them until the weeds are no longer visible and the white grubs are struggling to the surface and i fry them too. Yes it is time consuming and tedious. I get a good year or two of clean ground that allows my transplants thrive with no competition.
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I have firsthand experience with that. The first thing that I was using my flame weeder on was the Bermuda grass that was growing where I was going to plant a garden at the house we had just purchased. I would flame the grass, and then two weeks later it would have regrown somewhat and I would flame it again and then two weeks later there were just a couple of spots and then after one more treatment they were all gone.
The key with some weeds is that you need to treat them in a different fashion than you really want to. It would be great if a “once and done” were so easy, but I’ve found that using up the energy stored in the root system of the weed through multiple flaming and regrowing sequences can be the most effective course of action.
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We have an old friend who would get gophers in a similar way in hard clay. He would fill the gopher hole with propane and then light it off. Apparently, it was pretty satisfying when the stream of explosions shot off in front of him throughout all the gopher tunnels, but less so when it shot between his legs instead. After doing that for a while, he thought to expand into ground squirrels too. That decision kind of put him out of business, as their holes held a lot more propane and made a much more concerning boom.
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did your friend post videos to the internet? Because that’s how i learned how to do it about 10 years ago 
Great news though, they haven’t come back since at the places that i treated. I treated my old neighborhood and my friend’s neighborhood. Then again, we only ever had them twice in almost 20 years of being there.
I scared myself the last time i did it and thankfully haven’t had to do it again since.
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I found that a torch doesn’t work real well. Instead I now buy 45% vinegar. I mix it with water and dish soap. 1/3 vinegar to 2/3 water. Tablespoon of soap. Works real well on most weeds when it is sunny and warm.
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I use 30% vinegar with water but it attracts fruit flys like swd and sap beetles so stopped at least when any fruit is coming in. I try and use the DeWitt Pro weed fabric but that stuff is pretty expensive.
My senior neighbor hired a gardener last year to do her little yard with Bermuda grass and he ended up using a propane torch on a windy day it ended up burning her house down. It was very sad to see.
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That is terrible news about your neighbor. I am in Northern Arizona. Between zone 7a and 7b. I use the vinegar mostly around the vegie garden fencing and beds. Never had a problem with it attracting insects. In my orchard I spaced my trees so that I could run a tractor with a disc. I then hoe up the weeds close to the trees. I mulch a lot around the trees, so I don’t get many weeds in close.
When I was younger, I worked with an older gentleman who tended citrus groves. This was in SoCal. Early in the 20th century, citrus growers would plant mustard as a green manure. It would be growing in almost every grove in the 1970s. The older groves had flood irrigation. We would run a heavy disc and turn the mustard in. Then would water it for 2-3 days. There were very few noxious weeds. The mustard choked them out.
Have you thought about planting either cover crops and turning them in with a tiller or a permanent orchard mix that could be mowed?
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Thanks for sharing. I brush hog between rows. Between/around tree is my challenge.
How persistent is vinegar in soil?
Its broken down by bacteria. The acidifying effect doesn’t last
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