Copied from 'gardening know how'.....
"While Canada thistle will grow anywhere, it grows best in soil with low fertility and open areas. Improving your soil’s fertility will weaken the Canada thistle and help desired plants grow better and, therefore, make them better able to compete with the Canada thistle."
Read more at Gardening Know How: Controlling Canada Thistle – Canada Thistle Identification And Control
http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/plant-problems/weeds/canada-thistle-control.htm
Thanks for that link.
I don't believe that my soil is low in fertility and the pH is around 6.2
The fact that the thistle has lower competition, in my case, is due to deer pounding the forages I plant. It's the over browsing that allows the thistle to out-compete, not marginal soil.
The deer eat everything but the crap, so the crap flourishes.
There is one downside to growing highly desirable forages in areas with high deer per square mile and that's that the deer pound the desirable forage and reduce the competition to weeds and they flourish. I saw that happen in a plot of Balansa clover this year. In early to late spring the clover grew to over 3 feet and out-competed everything. But as we got into summer, the clover was not keeping up with browsing pressure and basically, the thistle was "released".
Sometime I think I'd have less weed issues if I grew slightly lesser desirable forages.
One thing I did learn from the link is that thistle should not be pulled. A few years ago, I spent a lot of time doing just that. It's possible that I made things worse at the time. I also believe tillage in areas of thistle exacerbates the problem. I've gone to very limited tillage this year.
The article also says that fighting thistle will need to be done repeatedly. Yikes, have I ever done that! That's why this has become so frustrating. To spend so much time, energy and money and not be winning the fight is demoralizing. I have much better things to do.
I'm thinking that the thistle on my place has become glyphosate resistant. I get top-kill with the strongest gly mix but the roots are surviving.
I guess its way past time to switch to a different herbicide...I'm thinking 2,4-D; But I've already sprayed 48% Roundup a week ago so I assume any chemical that I would use now would not be absorbed into the plant sufficiently. There are a few small areas of thistle that haven't been sprayed with gly, so maybe I'll mix up some 2,4-D and go spot spray...yet again.
I'll be trying 2,4-D next spring on the main trouble areas.