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Comment by skrebbel | Hacker News Reader

Ever thought you yanked a dandelion out by the entire root? Think again: https://images.wur.nl/digital/collection/coll13/id/676/rec/3

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no wonder the damned things keep coming back!

That's where glyphosate comes in handy.

The cancer was worth it to rid ourselves of a mildly offensive flower.

I reckon you could skip spraying it if you were going to eat it anyway.

Did you know that wheat in the US is sprayed with glyphosate right before harvest? It causes all the wheat to dry evenly, avoiding the need to cut down the wheat and windrow it for drying. This means extra weeks in the growing season to squeeze another crop in.

How would you squeeze another crop in?

By planting one after harvesting the wheat...

Why do you need to get rid of dandelions?

Instead of getting rid of them, I was hoping to find seeds for Russian dandelions. I'd like to grow some. Haven't been able to find any for sale though...

How much of the root needs to still be in the ground for it to be able to grow back?

New rosettes arise from buds at the crown and upper taproot so anything deeper than about 10cm is very unlikely to come back.

That drawing is from a very rare specimens too. Most dandelions do not grow that deep.

My dad told me that one year his school held a contest over the summer to see who could get the longest dandelion root.

Whats the units?

It says cm, so centimeters (1/100 meter) - slightly less than 0.4 inches

decimal place issues... I hope.

there are ten mm in a cm

456cm == 4560mm

there are 24.5 mm per inch (it is the law).

4550mm / 25.4 = 179.527 inches

or about 14.9 feet

which is about 5 yards

which is 20% of a 'murican football field if that helps

The above comment was pointing out that each 1 centimeter is slightly less than 0.4 inches. If you want to be more precise, each centimeter is about 0.3937 inches.

Your correction to my perception of what you intended 0.4 inches to represent is accepted.

Centimetres.

Their 13 cm high plant specimen had a 456 cm deep root.

So like 15 feet

Probably, since cm are almost as useless as the grand old imperial system

Or 4 Emperor penguins

Depends if they're imperial Emperor penguins

US customary

That's about four and a half AR-15 assault rilfes

Always good to have a weed puller in your toolshed. A stand-up puller, specifically, that operates as a lever, allowing it to first grab deeply and then through a rotation of the handle it pulls out quite a bit of the root system. A lifesaver if you have a rain garden which is really just a synonym for weed garden.

Any recommendations for a particular weed puller?

I've never used a bad one, although I wouldn't class any of them as anything stellar. All of them have looked like a snake's twisted tongue.

Using them depends on the delicate combination and application of brute force and technique. If your technique and brute force is up to spec, a crowbar works as a makeshift weed puller.

It's kinda gimmicky but I found this thing on clearance at a local hardware store and it works fairly well (gets most weeds out without me having to bend over, which is nice): https://grampasweeder.com/collections/grampas-gardenware/pro...

It doesn't get everything but I can do more work on the tough ones when so many come right out.

This CobraHead weeder has worked well for me

https://www.amazon.com/CobraHead-Original-Weeder-Cultivator-...

https://tinyurl.com/467m3frp

My Fiskars Xact makes me look like a pensioner but it works really well: https://www.fiskars.com/en-gb/gardening/products/weeding-too...

Not that it gets to the bottom of my dandelions ofc, but it sure feels like it does!!

the link is to a dandelion root system that goes 450 centimeters into the ground, or 4.5 meters / 5 yards.

we'd like to know how much of that weed would your weed puller pull if your weed puller pulled a full pull?

I would not actually like to know that, since such a device seems impossible

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