benefits of clipping

[mnbryant2001]

I agree as well. Spraying is a last resort for me. That is why I posted to agman about the control MIG gives with that particular weed. I wish I had so little of the nettle. Some will always be there. For me, my fathers health declined over the last several years.He wasn't able to tend to it like he once would and unfortunately then I wasn't available to help. He sold his cows after heart surgery and rented the land. After being severevly over grazed it really just went to crap. I took it over in January and after a lot of thinking and option searching spray is my only choice IMO. Then I can resow clover and move on. Milestone will prevent me from having clover one year but should put the worst behind me in one shot. After that if I have twice the nettle in my pasture and 3/4 of the grass in the pic i'll be

[dun]

I agree as well. Spraying is a last resort for me. That is why I posted to agman about the control MIG gives with that particular weed. I wish I had so little of the nettle. Some will always be there. For me, my fathers health declined over the last several years.He wasn't able to tend to it like he once would and unfortunately then I wasn't available to help. He sold his cows after heart surgery and rented the land. After being severevly over grazed it really just went to crap. I took it over in January and after a lot of thinking and option searching spray is my only choice IMO. Then I can resow clover and move on. Milestone will prevent me from having clover one year but should put the worst behind me in one shot. After that if I have twice the nettle in my pasture and 3/4 of the grass in the pic i'll be

Even with and all other best practices you can;t fix pastures/hay fields in just one or 2 years. Our pastures and hayfields were doing great after 8 years of working on them after many years of abuse and neglect. Now it's quit raining again for a couple of months and the only thing still growing are balckberrys, queen anns lace, red pigweed and nettle. Even the WSG (bluestem, etc.) has stopped growing and is browning off.

[ALACOWMAN]

Clipping won't do any good to many weeds - it's like mowing your grass. You cut it, and it just comes back up. It looks like you have some grass trying to come through there. I would consider hitting it with 2,4-d @ 2 qts an acre. Then leave it alone and let the grass come up and go to seed through the fall, then graze or cut it down to 5 or 6 inches. Around February or March, hit it with Chaparral @ 2.5 oz an acre with some fertilizer and pray for some rain.

sure it can...bushhogging during the 2nd week in august when the sugar content in the plant is low .... its all about timing you can control alot of weeds with just 2 4 d with the right timing ... but right now you'd kill or knock back the clovers,, which is like shooting yourself in the foot

[mnbryant2001]

I agree as well. Spraying is a last resort for me. That is why I posted to agman about the control MIG gives with that particular weed. I wish I had so little of the nettle. Some will always be there. For me, my fathers health declined over the last several years.He wasn't able to tend to it like he once would and unfortunately then I wasn't available to help. He sold his cows after heart surgery and rented the land. After being severevly over grazed it really just went to crap. I took it over in January and after a lot of thinking and option searching spray is my only choice IMO. Then I can resow clover and move on. Milestone will prevent me from having clover one year but should put the worst behind me in one shot. After that if I have twice the nettle in my pasture and 3/4 of the grass in the pic i'll be

Even with and all other best practices you can;t fix pastures/hay fields in just one or 2 years. Our pastures and hayfields were doing great after 8 years of working on them after many years of abuse and neglect. Now it's quit raining again for a couple of months and the only thing still growing are balckberrys, queen anns lace, red pigweed and nettle. Even the WSG (bluestem, etc.) has stopped growing and is browning off.

I completely agree dun. What I meant was I believe spraying is the best place for me to start and get to where I want to go quicker. Milestone has twice the success rate from what I have read than 24d with nettle. So in one shot if I will make a sacrifice of my clover for a year and spend a little more I may get there faster. It is great for buttercup as well. That was the reason for my post to agman. I haven't found any info on the trampling effect on nettle. I know it will come back to some degree.Where as my buttercup problem is not helped by trampling. To the plus side the ph and other fertilizer needs have always been kept in check. No wait to get that in check. I'm still green here but it won't be next week if that doesn't change.

[Ruark]

Clipping won't do any good to many weeds - it's like mowing your grass. You cut it, and it just comes back up. It looks like you have some grass trying to come through there. I would consider hitting it with 2,4-d @ 2 qts an acre. Then leave it alone and let the grass come up and go to seed through the fall, then graze or cut it down to 5 or 6 inches. Around February or March, hit it with Chaparral @ 2.5 oz an acre with some fertilizer and pray for some rain.

sure it can...bushhogging during the 2nd week in august when the sugar content in the plant is low .... its all about timing you can control alot of weeds with just 2 4 d with the right timing ... but right now you'd kill or knock back the clovers,, which is like shooting yourself in the foot

There are some weeds that can be injured by clipping, but many that aren't, no matter when you do it. I've clipped many weeds in August and just stood there and watched them come back. Like I said, it's like the grass in your yard. Further, if you wait until August, those weeds are going to be thigh-deep and by then your precious grass will be smothered beyond hope, clover or no clover. Kill them NOW, while they're small. Use 24d or whatever you want to, but kill the stuff and free your grass. And watch out for winter weeds.

I was looking at this mainly from the perspective of saving the grass and letting it re-establish, a process that, like Dun said, can take more than a couple of years, depending on how bad the pasture is.

[regolith]

It looks like you have some grass trying to come through there.

I thought it was a joke

[bigbluegrass]

agmantoo: I had some horsenettle in my pastures two years ago. It was about what I see in the picture above - not a lot but enough to notice. I was out looking yesterday and I cannot find any right now. I only have cattle and they won't eat it. I do rotationally graze with daily moves, very similar to what you are doing. Last year we broke every record for rainfall in this area. The grass couldn't be stopped. I wonder if the grass, given the chance with moisture, out grew and shaded out the nettle? Or is it just buried in my current pasture and I won't see it until the cows eat everything else down?

[dun]

agmantoo: I had some horsenettle in my pastures two years ago. It was about what I see in the picture above - not a lot but enough to notice. I was out looking yesterday and I cannot find any right now. I only have cattle and they won't eat it. I do rotationally graze with daily moves, very similar to what you are doing. Last year we broke every record for rainfall in this area. The grass couldn't be stopped. I wonder if the grass, given the chance with moisture, out grew and shaded out the nettle? Or is it just buried in my current pasture and I won't see it until the cows eat everything else down?

That's probably the case, but even if it's just shaded out it will show up as soon as the grass gets shorter.
We had a field that was heavy with clover and norse nettle. I sacrificed the clover and sprayed Grazon then over winter spread clover again. Clover is doing great and I haven;t seen any horse nettle in 2 years

[agmantoo]

bigbluegrass

The nettle is just suppressed. It will reappear as Dun stated. Most of the nettle at my place is under the hot partition fence with the single stand of HT wire. As the cattle are rotated the forage under the fence gets accessed twice as they can graze the area from either side of the fence. The double grazing keeps the grass low and the nettle pops out. I doubt that I will spray. I do believe any spraying sets all the forage back through stress even though the surviving species may appear to tolerate the herbicide. When I row cropped I observed the "burning" of the crop species too often.

[bigbluegrass]

Dang it! I was kind of hoping it was gone The cows are pretty good at picking around it, that is for sure. It kind of sticks out like a sore thumb after they graze an area.

[dun]

Dang it! I was kind of hoping it was gone The cows are pretty good at picking around it, that is for sure. It kind of sticks out like a sore thumb after they graze an area.

If it isn;t too thick you can hit it with Grazon even while it's flowering and kill it.

[bigbluegrass]

Do you spot spray or just hit everything? The nettle isn't thick at all. Just a few plants here and there last I saw of it a few years ago. I honestly can't find any out there now, but I haven't grazed that particular area since early May and the grass is still thick and about a foot high. If there is nettle in there, it blends in with everything else too much right now. I couldn't spot spray because I can't see any. I will be grazing it next week. We will see after I graze it what it looks like. Can you spray Grazon in a drought and still get any kind of a kill? Most plants are dormant right now - except thistles - those are still green and tall! I spot sprayed some of them, poison hemlock and some multiflora roses earlier this year with crossbow. That seemed to work pretty good. My pasture isn't as clean as agmantoo's!

[dun]

Do you spot spray or just hit everything? The nettle isn't thick at all. Just a few plants here and there last I saw of it a few years ago. I honestly can't find any out there now, but I haven't grazed that particular area since early May and the grass is still thick and about a foot high. If there is nettle in there, it blends in with everything else too much right now. I couldn't spot spray because I can't see any. I will be grazing it next week. We will see after I graze it what it looks like. Can you spray Grazon in a drought and still get any kind of a kill? Most plants are dormant right now - except thistles - those are still green and tall! I spot sprayed some of them, poison hemlock and some multiflora roses earlier this year with crossbow. That seemed to work pretty good. My pasture isn't as clean as agmantoo's!

Anymore I jusr spot spray a plant here and a plant there, pretty well have a decent handle on it now. It juts dawned on me that I don;t use just Grazon, it's a mix of Grazon and Remedy or Grazon and Surmount depending on what the main stuff I'm trying to kill is. The nettles I just spray as I see them. Even as droughty as we are it is still killing them.