New Guy - Bush Honeysuckle Project

[Whaack]

Hello, new guy here. Background - Purchased 150 acres two years ago and built a home on it. Life long dream. Property is 110 acres hardwood mix and 40 acres old hay/pasture.

I've got tons of questions and coming here for some guidance and hopefully I can share my wins/losses as I figure it all out.

One of my first projects is breaking open a few spots in the timber for food plots. Our farm is overrun with bush honeysuckle (Central Illinois Area). I'm talking nearly impenetrable to walk and most of it is 10'+ high.

I've identified a couple areas to clear. I have access to a mini-skid with a brush hog attachments. My 'plan' is to mulch it all to the ground this winter and hit it with 41% glyphosate mix immediatly. Then come spring basically carpet the area (.6 acres) with glyphosate again to kill everything that is coming up.

TBH I hate herbicide and my long term goal is to pivot as fast as I can to non-herbicide practices, but I'm not aware of any way to remove all the BH without herbicide. I could dig them up, but I would spend the rest of my adult life and probably not make a single dent in the property wiht that approach.

So.....am I on the right track? Anything I'm missing from those who have tried this approach? Thanks in advance for the help, looking forward to being a part of this community!

 

[Telemark]

A brush hog probably won't be sufficient on the honeysuckle you are describing. You would probably need a forestry mulcher.

I would recommend recruiting a second person to help. You'll need someone to drive the machine, and a second person to paint concentrated gly onto the stumps.

There may be more to it once you've cut it all down. You might find you need to rake up the wood chips in order to expose dirt for the seeds you put down. It's definitely doable, but it will be a far but of work. I deal with mature bush honeysuckle in Ohio, and it's not easy. I have to drop it with a chainsaw and then cut it onto pieces.

Best of luck to you, and welcome to the forum.

 

[Whaack]

Thx for the quick reply. To add more context, there will be 3 of us. Myself, BIL and my son. We will be running a chainsaw for the bigger stuff and one guy will be on full time glyphosate duty.

Like I mentioned we will come back very early spring when sprouts are returning and carpet it again with glyphosate. Think that’ll work? Our plan is to do 2x .5-.75 acre honey hole plots.

 

[Telemark]

That should work pretty well. It's probably how I would do it if I had the same resources. There are some decent resources out there regarding bush honeysuckle:

https://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/F-68

Herbicide treatments for controlling invasive bush honeysuckle in a mature hardwood forest in West-Central Indiana | US Forest Service Research and Development

research.fs.usda.gov

Be prepared to spot spray young honeysuckle yearly for a good long time. It is unbelievably tenacious.

 

[Whaack]

Great thank you. If anyone else has any tips I’m all ears.

 

[homerj]

I'd be using Crossbow instead of gly.

 

[Feelslikefar.]

Oof. I feel for you but have little advice. That was the most depressing part about hunting this past week, the woods are dead and dormant except for the BH, snow on the ground it they still have their leaves. So everywhere I went I was faced with my problem. And it's not the big bad bushes of it the get me, it's the thousands of young ones everywhere I turned. I sprayed a bunch in Sept. with a hot mix of Gly & Triclopyr-4. Seems to have put a hurting on most of what I sprayed, though next spring with tell the real story. I'd love to have a forestry mulched come in and run it all down, but it's just not fea$ible.