Spraying farm for trees

[cowman82]

I cut honey locusts off the farm in the winter. anywhere from new sprouts to 8" trees. I also have blackberries I cut and some various weeds like buck brush and thistle but those aren't that bad.

thinking of buying a boomless pull behind sprayer and hitting it or would a coop be better? also a local guy can drone spray it to for $10/ac. and I was thinking about that. This would be around 400 ac of ground and I would need to spray again in I think July for ragweed.

What can I use and what rates? Thinking 2/4D and a remedy clone? spray it around the end of march for my area?

 

[bird dog]

There are many choices. DiCamba and 2 4 D is very economic. There are many different names for it such as Weedmaster, Brash, Rifle D. Spray at a 1% mixture with a good surfactant at about 1/4%. With 400 acres it will take a while. Cimmaron max is a good choice and you don't have to fool with big plastic jugs. Patriot is a good economic choice and what I find myself using more and more.

End of March is generally a good time to start if your weeds are up and growing . I use a boomless mostly becasue my ground is not flat. Wind will give you fits at times so I usually spray early in the morning before it gets strong. Last year I did my most hated rough field first about March 15. In hindsight it was to early as I did not get great results.
If you going to spray your own from now on, consider a investment in a guidance system. It makes everything much easier and your coverage has less skips and overlaps.

Does the drone guy do that for $10 including chemical? I would be wary on using a drone as in most cases, the more fluid you put out, the better the result.

 

[cowman82]

no I have to pay the chemical for the drone. not sure on if that would work.

i don't see honey locust in the patriots controlled list?

thanks

 

[bird dog]

Yes if honey locust is your main target plant than Remedy would be a good bet. Tordon may be better. Both are somewhat expensive to use as a broadcast though. I guess its on how many of these locust trees you have. Spot spraying usually works much better as you can get more on the plant and usually getting every leaf wet is essential if using the foliar spray method.

Spraying woody plants is is somewhat different than weeds. With woody plants its usually better until summer when its good and hot and they are fully leafed out. Weeds are better when they are young and tender.

Too late now but it would have been better to spray all winter using remedy and diesel with the basal bark method instead of cutting them.

 

[greybeard]

I do like Triclopyr (Remedy) and sprayed a lot of it but I believe Tordon22 would be the better choice if Honey Locust is #1 on the hit list.
The big problem with the very young locust sprouts is it's waxy foliage and stems . That makes it hard for the chemical to penetrate, something it shares with both Mesquite and Chinese tallow.
I had to mix Triclopyr with diesel to get good kills on both tallow and mesquite. Mixed with water, the solution just ran right off or beaded up on the leaves and didn't get into the vascular system. I don't know how you would be able to spray any chem from the air with diesel in it......

 

[cowman82]

Yes if honey locust is your main target plant than Remedy would be a good bet. Tordon may be better. Both are somewhat expensive to use as a broadcast though. I guess its on how many of these locust trees you have. Spot spraying usually works much better as you can get more on the plant and usually getting every leaf wet is essential if using the foliar spray method.

Spraying woody plants is is somewhat different than weeds. With woody plants its usually better until summer when its good and hot and they are fully leafed out. Weeds are better when they are young and tender.

Too late now but it would have been better to spray all winter using remedy and diesel with the basal bark method instead of cutting them.

yea.. unfortunately these were about 1' - 10' apart on almost all acres. i can spot spray but thats a lot.

 

[kenny thomas]

Spray the stumps as you cut the trees. Job finished. The stump will soak up the chemical. The big plus is you can do it all winter. We done a lot of acres when i was working forestry and wanted a total kill so we could plant American Chestnut seedlings.
Garlon 4 mixed with diesel is what i use.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

You can also do the "hack and squirt" method. Machete to chop into the cambium layer and squirt your herbicide of choice in the wound.

 

[Lucky]

Grazon Nxt is what we've found works best for Honey Locust. We cleared 200 acres that was so thick you couldn't hardly walk through it then sprayed with 2 4 D and Grazon Nxt for several years and have very few sprouts. Think our cost was around $12 an acre. $5.50 was application fee. $10 with the drone sounds reasonable to me.

 

[Brute 23]

I would spray a good dose of GN XL in a month or so being that Lucky has had good luck with it. Then I would follow up in the fall with an ipt treatment of Remedy and diesel on what ever greens back up.

We have had really good luck with this combo. I've had better luck with this than dosing up the first treatment

 

[Lucky]

I should probably clarify. We cleared locust with a dozer and skid steer with a tree puller. Locust have long runners that sprout regrowth. We sprayed the regrowth and for regrowth. If you cut them I'm not sure spraying will work. GrazonNext will kill 4-5" locust trees and in a few months you can push them over. Needs foliage contact to work though.

 

[wbvs58]

Tebuthiuron granules broadcast will do the trick.
You must have been going hard at it to cover 400ac over winter.

Ken

 

[cowman82]

Tebuthiuron granules broadcast will do the trick.
You must have been going hard at it to cover 400ac over winter.

Ken

Thanks, I'll look into them. Yes, very long hours. lots of hard work. not fun to sit in a skid loader all day every day bumping around cutting thorn trees. I cut and I had another guy come in and pick them up on another SS. We started last August.

 

[cowman82]

Spray the stumps as you cut the trees. Job finished. The stump will soak up the chemical. The big plus is you can do it all winter. We done a lot of acres when i was working forestry and wanted a total kill so we could plant American Chestnut seedlings.
Garlon 4 mixed with diesel is what i use.

I have a sprayer on my cutter and for months I worked it and worked it.. but it just took about 4-5x as long to cut.. move the tree with the blade.. then spray.. bad thing is when you start cutting and you have 10 trees all on top of each other and your SS and your trying to move them all to spray was a total pain and took too long.

 

[cowman82]

Grazon Nxt is what we've found works best for Honey Locust. We cleared 200 acres that was so thick you couldn't hardly walk through it then sprayed with 2 4 D and Grazon Nxt for several years and have very few sprouts. Think our cost was around $12 an acre. $5.50 was application fee. $10 with the drone sounds reasonable to me.

think the drone would get enough liquid down to work? Most people are using Tordon around here but I'm not very knowledgeable about chemicals. I'll check out the grazon nxt.

 

[cowman82]

so really other than granules.. my only option is to let them start growing back a little and then spray them?

 

[bird dog]

Yes you have to have leaves to absorb the herbicide. To use herbicide on cut stems and stumps they need to be sprayed just after cutting them.

 

[Brute 23]

Yes. I didn't realize they were just cut.

 

[Lucky]

Gordon works on stumps but I've only applied it with the squirter bottle. You can buy it at TSC.

From what I've heard drones have excellent results when used for pasture spraying.

 

[Texas Ranch Hand]

I am a true believer in Sendero. I wiped out whole stands of mesquite with great results - I am guessing about a 95% kill rate. However, I didn't use a drone or broadcast sprayer. I used a hand wand from the sprayer on back of my tractor. (Also had a small tank on a SxS that worked. Sendero notes it works for honey and black locust. It doesn't harm any of the other trees and plants.

The other miracle herbicide I discovered was Tordon on cactus. I had literally hundreds of acres of pear cactus that we had aerial sprayed. A dog could run through a pasture it was so bad. First year the cactus looked sick. Second year it had about rotted away. Third year - nothing to see and zero regrowth.

FWIW