Buckthorn......

[Luckybuck]

Ok last year we select/thinned cut our wood from 250 stems per acre to 75 stem per acre. Trying to cut out the oak wilt and get new growth started. Overall I’m excited for the results. I have stump growth with 4-5’ saplings on them. The only thing I am disappointed is the amount of buckthorn that has grown up. Literally we are covered in the stuff. Not sure as to how to get rid of it. Seems resistant to round up, cutting makes it come back in bunches, pulling is very labor intensive. Any ideas???

 

[Tree Spud]

Birds eat the fruit from mature seed producing seeds and then disperse everywhere when they crap ... sitting in a tree, flying, etc.

Find your mature Buckthorn and and spray around the base with a mix of Garlon4 & diesel fuel. I use a mix or 3:1 diesel to garlon and use old large dish soap bottles to squirt around the base. I do this application in the winter. The diesel helps the garlon penetrate into the tree and then it gets pulled up into the tree in spring.

You can also cit the larger trees in winter and treat the stump. I have however seen shouts popping up from the root estensions so treat those also.

For smaller trees, up to around 6'-8' tall, I use Brush B Gone in a pump sprayer and spray all the leaves & stems while it's all green.

Also scout neighboring properties for mature seed producing trees. See if your neighbors will join in getting rid of this invasive if you supply the squirt bottles with garlon.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

I cut and treat stumps with tordon. Making sure to start with female trees. Your trees are obviously going to be young trees so a foliar application like mentioned should be your quickest solution.

We have a S. Facing hillside that I have been slowly opening up. It has quite a few remnant open grown oaks and I’d like to turn it back into the savanna it was in pre settlement times.

The least labor intensive method is the use of goats. Buckthorn is one of their favorite things to eat. After all the both shared the same native range. We are going to look into that rout this spring.


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[wiscwhip]

Well if you are in the Driftless Area, you should know what a "goat prairie" is then.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

Well if you are in the Driftless Area, you should know what a "goat prairie" is then.

What’s left of them anyway.


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[JFK52]

Cut down and treat the cambium layer with Tordon. Repeat the process on any new buckthorn growth every year. It is a multi year project because of how the seeds are spread as mentioned above.

 

[Rit]

I happen to be in year 3 of Buckthorn battle. They are not Glyphosate resistant but it’s the timing. You want to spray them when the tree is taking nutrients back down into the roots. November through April is when I attack buckthorn. In fact you can get a 100% kill with a 41% concentrate mixed with water. 2.5 gallon concentrate is under $30. Cheaper treatment per acre. You don’t even have to cut them down. If you damage the base of a tree with either a chainsaw or a machete and soak it with Glyphosate solution it will die.

The smaller trees can be pulled out by hand in the winter and spring. I carry around spray bottles for the bigger trees, felt tipped application bottles for the smaller trees, marking tape, and a means to damage buckthorn trees every time I am in the woods between those months.

As others have said find the female trees first. They won’t be hard to find. Most will have berries into February. That’s where the marking tape comes in. I never pass one without marking it with orange tape. Here is a photo of the biggest buckthorn tree I have found yet. I killed this in February of this year with the method I described and it’s a 100% dead. In November I will spray all the buckthorn saplings under this tree with a backpack sprayer and Glyphosate. I have read that those seeds are viable for 20 years. Without a doubt I have killed 2500 buckthorn trees in the last few years with a lot more to go.

 

[Rit]

That third picture is a buckthorn tree I cut the year before. It had a bunch of sprouts. Slashed the base and applied glyphosate. It’s now dead.

 

[Maddog3355]

Fire controls it if your able to do a controlled burn.

 

[Rit]

Just a small update on my buckthorn battle. I still believe in hacking the base and spraying with 41% glyphosate. What I have found in most cases it that you get a good kill. However on a few larger trees that I did last year it killed 90% of the tree but not all of it. This opened the door for some suckers.

I have been cutting and spraying buckthorn the last few days. I am covered in this stuff on about 20% of my property. I wish I could remove it but the areas are just to dense. After cutting them down and treating the stumps they remain standing. After some time some of them fall over. I’ll return in a few months to make sure they aren’t blocking any trails. Either way I get what I wanted dead buckthorn and more sunlight to the ground.

 

[cavey]

Ok last year we select/thinned cut our wood from 250 stems per acre to 75 stem per acre. Trying to cut out the oak wilt and get new growth started. Overall I’m excited for the results. I have stump growth with 4-5’ saplings on them. The only thing I am disappointed is the amount of buckthorn that has grown up. Literally we are covered in the stuff. Not sure as to how to get rid of it. Seems resistant to round up, cutting makes it come back in bunches, pulling is very labor intensive. Any ideas???

Luckybuck,
What part of WCW are you in? I do not have it on my property but Im in fear of what logging will bring in... I know of patches to the south east of my land so its around. Something to look forward to post cut I guess.

 

[Rit]

Luckybuck,
What part of WCW are you in? I do not have it on my property but Im in fear of what logging will bring in... I know of patches to the south east of my land so its around. Something to look forward to post cut I guess.

You just don’t know what you are missing. I can send you as many seeds as you would like.

 

[Rit]

I have killed at least 250 Buckthorn trees this week. It sure seems like that’s all I do anymore.

 

[cavey]

You just don’t know what you are missing. I can send you as many seeds as you would like.

Maybe I should embrace a little variety and plant diversity - how bad can a plant be that has "buck" in its name?!?!

Rit - I've got wild parsnip creeping up on my property from the east and west along the highway just a 40 off from my property... maybe we can trade some seeds!

 

[Nova]

Have someone help you. You take a saw and a clipper and walk around cutting every plant/tree you can find and your helper should be right behind you with a squirt bottle of half diesel and half tordon, garlon, gly(whatever you prefer). I use gly cause it's a LOT cheaper and seems to work just as well. Every stump, no matter how small needs to be squirted. If you can do it in the fall it's much easier to ID buckthorn as it will be the last tree holding leaves and the leaves will be green well into November.

 

[Knehrke]

Be careful with that Tordon. I was a fan for years, but I believe that I had a lot of collateral damage due to it's being soil active. I was using it on cut vines too, though, and those are clearly very close to trees. Either way, I've lost some mature specimens of several species from seemingly unknown causes, but coincidentally within a year or two of nearby Tordon treatment. I use Gly and Garlon now without issues yet.

 

[Luckybuck]

Cavey,
Im in Jackson County, just outside of Black River Falls. Thanks for everyones advice. Trying to find some helpers and a brush saw (weed whip with a cicular blade) to rent. My one main helper went and joined the Marines so he's gone for the next 3 months for basic and then wherever Uncle Sam needs 'em.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

Be careful with that Tordon. I was a fan for years, but I believe that I had a lot of collateral damage due to it's being soil active. I was using it on cut vines too, though, and those are clearly very close to trees. Either way, I've lost some mature specimens of several species from seemingly unknown causes, but coincidentally within a year or two of nearby Tordon treatment. I use Gly and Garlon now without issues yet.

I lost a beautiful fully mature open grown oak tree to what I suspect was soil active herbicide. Gly only for me from here on out.

 

[Chainsaw]

I have killed at least 250 Buckthorn trees this week. It sure seems like that’s all I do anymore.

It sounds like you may be gaining on the buckthorns Rit; good for you. It is a daunting task for sure. When you cut and spray the base of a multi-trunk buckthorn do you find that you get a good kill rate by just treating just one trunk or do you need to treat all or almost all of the trunks? Also have you had any luck yet with anything germinating and sprouting besides buckthorn in the areas where you have been killing and spraying it?

Many years ago before everyone shared knowledge like this we had buckthorn growing in the understory of almost mature hardwoods. It was dying out due to shade but the buckthorn remaining grew in long sections. The deer used the buckthorn cover as their main travel ways to get from point A to B. We thought it was a great plant then. We have since killed hundreds of buckthorn by pushing over and "bulldozing" with the tractor or cutting and gly spraying the stump. With cutting so many trunks and dropping the buckthorn trees, I can remember a lot of twisted chains and even a bent bar or two not to mention having buckthorn fall on us. I don't mind a few stands of it here and there but it doesn't stay put and behave.

Saw a contractor planting buckthorn this past fall as a screen for a very expensive cottage property! Imagine that! I suppose all male trees would have been alright but that wasn't the case.

 

[Rit]

It sounds like you may be gaining on the buckthorns Rit; good for you. It is a daunting task for sure. When you cut and spray the base of a multi-trunk buckthorn do you find that you get a good kill rate by just treating just one trunk or do you need to treat all or almost all of the trunks? Also have you had any luck yet with anything germinating and sprouting besides buckthorn in the areas where you have been killing and spraying it?

Many years ago before everyone shared knowledge like this we had buckthorn growing in the understory of almost mature hardwoods. It was dying out due to shade but the buckthorn remaining grew in long sections. The deer used the buckthorn cover as their main travel ways to get from point A to B. We thought it was a great plant then. We have since killed hundreds of buckthorn by pushing over and "bulldozing" with the tractor or cutting and gly spraying the stump. With cutting so many trunks and dropping the buckthorn trees, I can remember a lot of twisted chains and even a bent bar or two not to mention having buckthorn fall on us. I don't mind a few stands of it here and there but it doesn't stay put and behave.

Saw a contractor planting buckthorn this past fall as a screen for a very expensive cottage property! Imagine that! I suppose all male trees would have been alright but that wasn't the case.

I always treat all the stumps. I have noticed where I have missed one or two and part of the tree remains alive or it will sprout.

I have noticed that under large multi-trunk female trees the year after I kill it there will be a few hundred seedlings. I make note of these locations then I kill everything under the tree the following spring.

I don’t have very many female plants left standing that currently produce berries. This is the 3rd winter since I started killing them. The first year I went nuts and killed well over 3,000 trees. I am probably right around 500 so far this winter. I still have a long long way to go but I feel like I am killing more than are sprouting now.