Please allow me to rant...
I sure wish we could swear on threads. My keyboard would be smoking while I typed curse words that haven't even been invented yet. Feel free to mentally insert 4 letter words as you read this...
I was out in it again today. Ripping it out by hand because my tractor is broken so I can't brush hog a portion of this evil stuff. It's growing in amongst the nastiest stuff...multiflora rose, hawthorn, blackberry, poison ivy.
My body is so tore up from mile-a-minute barbs and thorns. Got a big knot on my head from pulling over a dead tree that this crap smothered and killed.
I bought my original 20 acres in 1985 and it had very little cover. It was mostly hayfields. I've spent the last 25 years developing tremendous cover but in just the last couple years, mile-a-minute has begun to take over acres and acres of my place. I can't believe how fast it has happened. This stuff is going to smother and destroy every thing I've worked for. I am NOT exaggerating how bad this problem is.
I think my only alternative at this point is to start brush hogging (or dozing) my cover in order to stop this stuff from producing more seeds. After 6 or 7 years, the seed bank should be non viable and I could start developing cover again. The only problem with that is I will be getting long in the tooth by that time. I'll probably never have excellent cover again...there's just not enough time.
I guess one alternative is to convert everything to switchgrass. But even that cannot happen until the seed bank is exhausted.
I'm begging you guys with all my heart...don't let this invasive take hold on your property! Keep an eagle eye out for it, and not just on your own land. If it's nearby, then it WILL eventually be pooped by birds onto your land.
Here's a few pics from today. My frickin arms are on fire right now from the barbs.
This stuff will climb and smother anything and every thing.
I have dozens of wild crabs and hawthorn that are smothered like this...
Here's a shot of what happens in the years after the stuff climbs a tree. It sets fruit (think "seeds") within the drip line and then the seed sprouts in following 6 years and the smothering problem just multiplies. MaM is bad enough when it's in mowable areas like berries or goldenrod, but when it gets well established
under valuable trees, it gets to be even more of a problem.
Just a shot of some with berries. Most of mine has not developed mature berries this year...
yet. Every day that I don't destroy this stuff is another day that seed will become viable.
Here's an example of newly developing MaM starting to climb a crab that I spent good money on. If I don't kill the MaM
now, the evil stuff will grow berries and I'll be fighting it around this tree for years to come...
Climbing high up into an elm...
Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk