Posted this over int he "Trees" forum, but no response.
I want to significantly thin or eliminate scrub mesquite, cat-claw, bayberries, palo verde, burro brush, desert broom, etc. along our road and in a patch near the house. It will look better and be less of a fire hazard. I cleaned up a small section of it the way I want, but (no surprise) the plants I cut back immediately began to regenerate.
What herbicide will kill these trees? If it takes them all out, I won't be unhappy & will replant.
Thanks,
Frank
BTW, male mulberry trees make spectacularly good shade trees here. Fast growing, easy to shape, dense shade
Need to kill some scrub trees.
hehehe, mesquite, you take a chainsaw to and burn. When they clear large areas of mesquite they use a little dozer with a root puller to remove each root - will not stay cleared without constant clearing even then. The fast regrowth is why it was suggested as a 'greenfuel' it regenerates itself fast enuff to keep us in fuel for ages. BTW, male mulberry is used a lot for good shade trees, but has a short life and is still prone to certain infestations of webworms etc, because it is a fruit tree. Have you ever noticed that bushes stay away from railroad trax? The traintrax have clear sides. It is from the poisons that they use, makes the ground unusable for anything, and the animals do not linger...
"The traintrax have clear sides. It is from the poisons that they use"
Do you know what they use?
Drill a 1/4 inch hole at a 45 degree angle in each unwanted tree trunk---fill hole with Roundup--it will kill the roots and it will not regrow.
I had some of that chemical once, a few granules cleared a swathe 20 ft wide into bare earth, for abt a year and a half, then apparently it breaks down into fertilizer, stuff grew with a vengeance-no food crops- I DON"T remember, it was in 1986, they spray only about once a year to keep the trains from de railing, and I don't see that it stunts anything away from the trax, sorry.
kittriana,
You must be thinking of another chemical.
For years, a customer of ours oversaw the railroad tracks foliage as well as pesticides. For clearing the growth, they used Round Up. They used a higher strength than you normally would purchase and they always added detergent to the dilution.
The trick to using RU is it kills from the tip or top down. I have seen them kill large trees but only trim limbs on others using RU. It will kill from the tip back only. If you want a limb removed, for example a large overhanging pine limb spray the pine needles all the way to the tip of the limb. It will take time but in a year, the limb only will die and slough off. If it is their intention to remove a tree, the spray must reach the very top of the tree in order to kill the tree down to its' roots. The first time you spray to remove your trees will take time to take effect but after that, it will only take maintenance. As they worked the railroad tracks all around the country, I will guess the treatment would be the same in AZ for the type of growth you have as well.
If you would like me to find out more information on the % of glyphosate used and the ratio of detergent, I should be able to do so in the next week or so.
Roundup granules would be my guess, and podster thanx, they do use it universally. my granddad refused to use DDT when it was available, but he would use chemicals that were more prone to breakdown into a decomp that was reminiscent or was fertilizer to plants- except on Johnson grass and we tried the arsenic laced poison on that stuff. Very Carefully, I might add, no wind drift. Just doesn't work well enuff, long enuff on JohnsonG, so didn't bother with the expense for repeated apps.
Good stuff. Thanks.
We have invasive brush called buckthorn that I have successfully killed with roundup. I find it works best on trees and brush in the spring when the leaves are young. It doesn't seem to work as well in the summer. I too use a stronger solution. Does anyone know of a cheap source for roundup?
Helen,
"Roundup" lost it's patent a few years ago. Now there are equivalent "generic" products on the market. at about half price. "Round up" is a glycophosphate herbicide. There are now glycophosphate herbicides available at about 1/2 price but pay attention to the concentration.
Yes ~ to the generics. One of those names was Eraser but I am now hearing they have all risen in price also.
Sigh, my computer has a mind of its own, at least I found where I had been this time. The detergent used is any lo sudsing liquad detergent-Dawn works great in the FtWorth areas- but it depends on whether or no your water is 'soft or hard' as to which kind you might like to use. Too much soap causes fits with the sprayer nozzles, too little doesn't allow the solution to cling to the spot you are spraying. It was once referred to and sold as 'spreader/sticker' and the detergent can be used in both applying poisons, or liguad fertilizers. You simply don't want to use so much you get suds. A teaspoon to a gallon of water could be too little or too much, you know your water... podster, I did notice that the granulated forms of RU have suspension issues with mixing. Which is why I sprinkled and watered instead of mixing, tsk, tsk, but I had issues with what I wanted to remove and no desire to replant there, I do remember it was in a white plastic gallon jug, but like I said, that was 1987, and it had been 'gifted' to me by a load I had been under as it was a damaj and refuse item, and shipping returned was refused.