Velvet leaf?

[Dave Shepard]

I have some kind of broad leaf plant growing on my compost piles that everyone calls velvet leaf. Has anyone ever heard of this?  I have been making compost for the last few years and it is now ready to sell. However, I don't want to sell it until I know what I am dealing with here. My compost making would be best described as cold composting, as I only turned the piles 2-3 times per year. I started with 250 yards of pine wood chips and kept adding fresh cow manure, old hay, rotten silage. Now I have about 130 yards that is perfect, no signs of any wood chips in it, unlike the competition. I also have another 150 yards that is about a year away. Is there any way to sterilize the compost to kill the weed seeds? I'd hate to have to try to hot compost this stuff, as it would be additional time. Also I have been told that the velvet leaf seeds will survive in the ground for fifty years, so I would be worried about that I would never be able to fully get rid of the seeds in this location. Thanks.






Dave

[SwampDonkey]

I don't know anything about it. It does look like velvetleaf in Audubon. Apparently, a native to India and not so common in the southeast US.

Does google yield anything of concern?

[thurlow]

In the South, velvet leaf is also called Wild Cotton;  can't tell if that's what you have or not;  here's a
link to some pictures/information from Google Images.

[bull]

dave good luck getting rid of that crap......  your area has alot of it, comes with the corn silage....

Pull it out before it flowers, that stuff goes to seed very quick and will take a couple years to get rid of it..

[Dave Shepard]

I turn the piles before it makes seed heads. I like to think I'm adding some nitrogen back into the compost, but who knows. I am most worried about selling this stuff and gettting in trouble for smuggling evil plant seeds around or something. I need to find a solution pretty quick, the pile of compost is worth $5000, and I could use it.


Dave