# Making a pasture....and keeping it managed.



## greybeard (Jul 11, 2018)

Thought I would post a little about pastures and the differences in a manged pasture and one that is not...and what the results of an un-managed pasture can easily become.
For people new to pasture management, the first rule is vision.
Have in your mind, not what you want your pasture to be tomorrow, but what you want it to be when you are all done and have nothing left to do but get up, watch the sunrise, drink a cup of Joe, and wander out to tend to your animal's immediate needs. Never, lose sight of that vision.

Weeds. Later in this, I will be using that term loosely, a catch all for any unwanted plant even tho it may include tree saplings, woody brush, reeds and vines around ponds..all of it. For this purpose, if it isn't grass forage, it's a weed.

As most here know, I took my land from a many decades old thicketed pine & hardwood forest, and tho the original process began when I was a kid in the mid 60s, I didn't really get into it seriously until 2008. At that time, it was a useless, ugly, useless, impenetrable mess. My vision at that time, was cleared land, with just a few trees left, pond, and plenty of good forage for cattle, fenced pastures weed and brush free and I worked to that end immediately.  Cleared the land, piled the leftovers from logging, burned them and planted grass then worked on fences.  By 2010, I cattle grazing belly deep in Bahia grass. Thought I was home free then, but soon realized my work had only begun.

Even if I had bought a place with good pastures already established and ready for grazing, there would still be work to be done...the managing part.

There are 2 types weeds, as there are 2 types any plant. Annuals and perennials.
By far, annuals seem like they would be easiest to deal with, as they are almost all seed born. Perennials on the other hand return each season from their root stocks, usually having lain  dormant during the cold winter months.
Regardless of the method of weed control we choose, to be successful (or actually 'more successful') , we need to know a little about plant growth..how the vascular system works from the roots up thru the stalk or trunk. 
Not all plants work exactly the same, solid woody trees work different than a soft weed stem but the basics are mostly the same.

Annual weeds.
There is a common misconception, that you can mow or graze down annual weeds 2-3 times per year and quickly get rid of them permanently. Most cases, this is not true. All you have done is to prevent or postpone seedhead formation. Most people's lawns are from seed established plants, but you mow it every week and it never dies out during the growing season. And there are always weeds popping up in your lawn, no matter how many times you mow. Why? There is, in the soil, a seedbank. There are years of seeds of every kind of plant that ever grew in the last decade (maybe longer) stored there, just waiting for the right moment to sprout and grow, and many of the native weed seed can lie dormant for many years, still viable. There are also seeds in that seedbank, from those bags of grass seed you originally planted to make a lawn. They don't all sprout..a lot stay 'in reserve' to help replace lawn grass that has died.

Perennials can be even worse and that problem comes not from seeds but from the root systems. We tend to think of roots being a one way conduit, carrying nutrient rich moisture from the ground to the limbs and leaves of trees and plants. It is not. It's a crowded 2 way highway.  The roots are more than suction and anchoring devices...they are also storage facilities and they do a great job of it. Unless it's an evergreen, the plant itself dies back in winter, but within the root system, even in regions where the frost line is very deep, are stored vital nutrients. Energy, in the form of carbohydrates, sugars and some starches that were made by the leaves' photosynthesis during the growing season and sent down a section of the plant stalk or trunk called the phloem, and that area of living cells can move nutrients up or down as the plant needs demand. (The section of 'plant highway' that transports nutrients up TO the leaves is the Xyleum and it is generally made of dead cells.)

The volume of energy stored in perennial roots can last for years, thru drought, extremely long bitterly cold winters, mowing, herbicide applications, digging, tugging, pulling and it usually only takes one little root left to produce at least one new plant, even if every bit of the above ground plant is gone.

More later.......


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## greybeard (Jul 12, 2018)

Return to the seedbank.. People wonder, why don't the weed seeds just all come up at once after a nice rain, so I can get rid of them all at one time?
The answer is, for most weed seeds.. they can't. Most of the time, there is already some cover of some kind already growing and the seeds need 2 other things besides moisture. Sunlight/warmth and room. By room, I mean a place to squeeze thru the existing growth...a few sq inches or a few sq yards of open space. The open space allows the sun to warm the soil so the seed 'knows' to germinate. If grass or ground cover is already there, it acts as an insulator and keeps the sun's rays from warming the soil, even in mid summer.
Ever drive thru your nice grassy pasture, maybe turn your 4 wheeler or pickup truck too sharp or drag something across the forage and leave a bare spot of soil? Watch it. Bare today, but 2 weeks later..weeds. Weed seeds love disturbed soil. They are opportunists and you provided the opportunity. Birds didn't come flying by and deposit those seeds or the wind pick up seeds somewhere else and drop seeds on that bare soil........they were already there.  You look out at your nice green pasture today and are just soooo happy with it, but believe me, no matter where you live in the world, weed seeds are right below the surface...waiting waiting waiting. I've seen it too many times, and most of you probably have as well.
I took this picture in 2009..it's part of a pasture about 15 acres total, not long before we moved into the house May 09. 2 years before, it was covered in forest, thicket, and vines so thick you couldn't walk thru it.
I had cleared it, removed most of the stumps, disked it and preparing to plant bahia/bermuda mix on it as soon as it warmed up some more. My cowpen now sits where that tree trunk is and that incomplete fence corner is now my SE yard corner. (the lone pine I left died and I cut it down before I finished fencing in the yard) As you can see, it's mostly bare ground....danger will robinson!





Same area, taken in January which is mid winter her, about 1 year later.
I've cut the pine down, finished the yard fence, installed the gateway and the remnants of the frost killed grass can be seen..typical of winter here on new pasture. Takes about 1 1/2 growing seasons to really establish and cover.



Like all things, it isn't what you see, it's what I didn't get a picture of.

Spring of 2009 the grass seed did come up pretty good, but along with it, the most prodigious crop of woolly croton and croton capitatus ever to grace this planet completely covered my yard and the area in those pictures. It's a native plant here, all along the gulf coast and will grow on most of the southern USA, more often called Dove Weed or Goat Weed. It reproduces solely by seed, and each plant produces hundreds and hundreds of seeds. I had tens of thousands of plants in the area you see. I had seen, but a few of these plants in the woods before I cleared it, but not many tho my gut feeling was they had been growing there each year & for decades .
I gave the croton seedbank all and everything it needed to come alive after the 1st spring rain fell. Bare ground and sunlight. It was awful, but I had a heck of a dove flock every afternoon. I mowed it down 3 times in 2009 and it just kept growing back until the first good frost, but I knew much of it would be back the next spring if not more.

Not only was it in the pasture, but covered the yard as well. I was able to cut lower in the yard with my lawnmower every other week, but it didn't matter. The plants just kept growing back. They are extremely drought tolerant, will grow on any soil, grow up to 4 ft high but, are a dicot, making them easy to pull up. Drought resistant doesn't mean it won't grow well in damp soil, it thrives either way. When the drought came a few years later, and I drove up thru East Texas to the Oklahoma border, I realized just how thick the croton seed bank was all over the state. The drought first stressed then all but killed the grass, allowing sun to hit the soil and woolly croton was everywhere (but not on my place)

Not mine, but this pasture full of woolly croton is what much of East Texas looked like in the summer of 2011's drought:





Wooley croton was not the only weed I had that year. Dog fennel, some marestail,  and thousands of little sweet gums sprouted up too.


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## Bruce (Jul 13, 2018)

Looking forward to future installments.


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## greybeard (Jul 13, 2018)

Working on it Bruce. 
pH and nutrients and their effect on weed growth will be next and it may surprise some.


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## greybeard (Jul 16, 2018)

We have all heard, get your soil pH  right before we try to fertilize. When we start to make a pasture or renovate an old one, we should look at several things and pH is at the top of the list.

The relation between top soil and subsoil regarding moisture retention(does the topsoil drain down thru the subsoil well enough to not be a muddy mess for weeks and weeks after a slow soaking rain?), porosity (can moisture even get down to the roots...can oxygen get to the roots and other gasses out away from the roots?) , the big 3: Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potash or Potassium and pH.

pH is among the most overlooked part of our pastures, because it is often the hardest to adjust, and even if we know what we need to do, it isn't as quick a fix as the NPK needs are & I'm as bad about ignoring pH as anyone but what is pH anyway and how does it affect forage grasses and what we call weeds?

Plants live and grow thru photosynthesis..the process of using sunlight to break down base elements into a plant's real food. We think, when we water our plants, and add fertilize, compost, organics, NPK and other 'stuff' that we are feeding our plants. We are not. We are making 'stuff' available to the plant so it can easily and quickly make it's own food.  That food, is glucose.  How do they do it? Scientifically the plant takes 6 molecules of CO2 (carbon dioxide) from the air and six molecules of H2O (water) from the soil (and air) and thru photosynthesis, turn those into one molecule of C6H12O6  which is the scientific notation for one molecule of glucose.

What does that have to do with ph?
The letters pH stands for 'potential Hydrogen' and the H is capitalized simply because it is the scientific symbol for Hydrogen, the most abundant element in our universe.  Potential Hydrogen roughly means  the ability to absorb Hydrogen ions.  (an ion is an atom or molecule with it's # of electrons not equaling the number of protons in the nucleus)    Hydrogen, as illustrated above, is an essential part of photosynthesis, the process that all plants use to live and grow.  H, is one of the elements that doesn't 'travel' well alone. It's atoms are almost always bound to another atom (or several). Our air has very very little H in it, (way less than 1%)  but we have plenty of H in water and water vapor, so the plant needs water simply for the hydrogen and as a liquid medium to carry water soluble nutrients. No matter what else we 'feed' our pasture or garden plants tho, without H, that plant will die.  However, a plant can have too much H as well as too little and will still die.  This, is where the ph scale comes in.


The potential Hydrogen scale tells us whether our soil and water (and almost everything else) is acidic or alkaline. While the 0-14 pH scale means 7 is neutral, most forages and other plants seem to do better a little on the acidic side, around 6 to 7.  All tho the scale is graduated 1-14, the difference between the numbers is a factor of 10. For instance, if a soil shows to be slightly acidic at 6, it has 10 times the acid as neutral 7. If the test shows an alkaline 8, it is 10X more alkaline than 7 but 10X LESS alkaline than a 9. Small differences can make a lot of difference.

It was developed and adapted internationally just to give us an easy indicator, but besides hydrogen, what does the differences in acidic and alkaline mean in regards to plants ? It means a lot regarding how well those other things a plant needs are transportable and movable..how available they are. Some elements and compounds are more easily available  in acidic bases and some more available in alkaline base. For H alone, a neutral base works best for most plants, with just about every plant being able to live, grow, and reproduce within a few points either way of neutral.  Neutral means a balance....not too much nor too little H.

But, as we all know, H isn't the only thing a plant needs, and some plants need more of some elements than others and the acidity or alkalinity of the soil and water play a big part in that as well.  (We don't worry much about the pH of the water our plants get, as most rain is pretty good for our forages at an acidic # of around 5.2-6 and few of us irrigate out of streams, rivers or lakes that may have a low or high pH. It's pretty accurate to say, that from a plant's point of view, 'what the soil is, it's water is'.





As far as our basic NPK fertilize goes, no matter if it is 100% organic or commercial, pH plays an important part in whether the plant gets to use it or not.


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## greybeard (Jul 16, 2018)

Posted the chart again, because we are going to use it in this post......
What, is the correlation between a weed crop and the soil's pH?
Agronomists are sure there is one, tho all do mostly favor the old adage of 'Listen to what your weeds are saying."

Is it the actual acidity vs alkalinity that makes the difference? 
Let's look at a few common weeds..
We know that common bur clover likes a relatively low pH (between 4 and 6) but it also likes low fertility soil--specifically, low in Nitrogen. 
Look at the pH chart above on the 4-7 acid side, and we see that soil's ability to hold & transport N , begins to taper off at 6.0. 

Knotweed, also likes low pH soil, and low magnesium and low calcium soils. 
Again, both of those elements aren't very available in low pH soils. 

So, is there really a correlation to pH and weed growth? I'm not so sure it isn't more a case of an absence of trace elements. I have some places with pretty high pH and dandelions don't seem to have a bit of problem growing there, but that's anecdotal evidence and I'm really not much on that.

Wasting fertilize...
You can see in the forage fertilize chart, how much of the N you can lose with a low pH. Get your pH right first and the only way you can tell what you need to do, is by a soil assay or test. (unless of course you just have lots of $$$ to throw away)

Will finish this post after breakfast......


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## Baymule (Jul 16, 2018)

Thank you for your detailed explanation. I always learn from your years of experience. You are right about the goat weed. I pull it up on our place and more comes back. I’ll win some day. 

There is several hundred acres across the road from us in two sections with two owners. One pasture is sporting American Persimmon seedlings and is seldom mowed. The Persimmons are quickly moving to saplings and will soon form a thicket if not mowed more regularly. Two large trees drop a LOT of fruit each fall. 

The other pasture gets covered in goat weed, but it gets mowed—AFTER the goat weed sets seed every fall. What dummies. They are only planting more! 

My sheep eat a lot of weeds, but even they won’t eat goat weed.


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## greybeard (Jul 16, 2018)

Baymule said:


> You are right about the goat weed. I pull it up on our place and more comes back. I’ll win some day.


That weed seedbank including the croton seed, will be there long after we're all dust . The croton variety that grows in most of Texas can, per plant... drop up to 20,000 seeds in it's  single annual lifetime. How many seeds do you think lie in and on the ground below the plants in this picture?


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## Bruce (Jul 16, 2018)

greybeard said:


> (unless of course you just have lots of $$$ to throw away)


Which apparently they do in Iowa. Radio show today talked about how many millions of tons of Nitrogen are getting into the gulf from Iowa farms, primarily corn and soy bean. Apparently corn doesn't like wet feet so there are in excess of *1,000,000 MILES* of drain tile under the farms to run water off the land. Guess where it goes. In some years Iowa is the source of up to 89% of the nitrates in the Missouri River even though their land area is only 3.3% of the Missouri River basin. Over the last 20 years without the Iowa drainage, the amount of nitrates reaching the Mississippi Delta would have gone down 42,000 tons/year, with Iowa's "contribution" it is up 50,000 tons/year. 
Spread it on, wash it down the river. Lots of money going to waste and creating the dead zone in the Gulf.



Baymule said:


> My sheep eat a lot of weeds, but even they won’t eat goat weed.


That is why you need to add goats to your farm!



greybeard said:


> How many seeds do you think lie in and on the ground below the plants in this picture?


Um, A LOT?!?


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## greybeard (Jul 16, 2018)

Bruce said:


> Um, A LOT?!?


More than there are miles of tile drains in Iowa


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## Pastor Dave (Jul 16, 2018)

There are lots of farms draining into the Wabash, Ohio and on into the Mississippi that I'm sure go out to the Gulf. We haven't been too friendly to our waterways.


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## Latestarter (Jul 16, 2018)

Just so's ya know, my goats won't eat goat weed either... Leaves off the Chinese privet, ash, sweet gum, and oak trees are so much tastier. Thanks GB for sharing your knowledge.


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## Bruce (Jul 16, 2018)

So much for "goats eat anything". No goat weed, no burdock, no stinging nettle, no tin cans. Sheesh what are they good for?


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## Mike CHS (Jul 16, 2018)

Our sheep pasture is fairly easy to manage but if you don't keep the tall growth under control and cut about right at a foot high, the woodier plants will shade out the plants they really like to eat.


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## mystang89 (Jul 17, 2018)

Thanks for writing this. Seems fairly comprehensive and easy to understand so far. I would like to re-emphasize just how important it is to crowd out the weeds. If the Grass Roots are strong then it's more difficult for the weeds to be able to incur on the prescious land. This of course goes right into what you were saying about pH and helping your Grass to have the most suitable place to thrive.

I do have one question though on how some of you would take care of a particular problem. When I moved into this house the were many locus trees in a copes that needed to be taken down. Locus trees do NOT need open spot to grow NOR do they need sunlight NOR do they need water (at least directly).I have been battling locus trees growing inside my wood shed for years now. The shed has no light, no direct rain, but I still continue to spray round up and continue to watch the locus die only to come right back up in a month.  The problem is the MAIN root system I believe, of the tree which was cut down with in the vicinity. Proximity has nothing to do with it.

I say this because in my wood shed I can just cut the root from beginning to end running through the shed but in the pasture that is impossible. If I can't get to mowing soon enough it starts to look like a locus Grove again. How do I battle at tree that doesn't care about whether it has room. Doesn't permanently die from from round up and grows new shoots from a root underground that can run forever?


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## Senile_Texas_Aggie (Jul 17, 2018)

@greybeard,

    I have copied every one of your postings on this thread to a file where I can easily reference it.  Thanks so much for writing this so far.  I look forward to your additional posts in this and other threads.

Senile Texas Aggie


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## Baymule (Jul 17, 2018)

mystang89 said:


> Thanks for writing this. Seems fairly comprehensive and easy to understand so far. I would like to re-emphasize just how important it is to crowd out the weeds. If the Grass Roots are strong then it's more difficult for the weeds to be able to incur on the prescious land. This of course goes right into what you were saying about pH and helping your Grass to have the most suitable place to thrive.
> 
> I do have one question though on how some of you would take care of a particular problem. When I moved into this house the were many locus trees in a copes that needed to be taken down. Locus trees do NOT need open spot to grow NOR do they need sunlight NOR do they need water (at least directly).I have been battling locus trees growing inside my wood shed for years now. The shed has no light, no direct rain, but I still continue to spray round up and continue to watch the locus die only to come right back up in a month.  The problem is the MAIN root system I believe, of the tree which was cut down with in the vicinity. Proximity has nothing to do with it.
> 
> I say this because in my wood shed I can just cut the root from beginning to end running through the shed but in the pasture that is impossible. If I can't get to mowing soon enough it starts to look like a locus Grove again. How do I battle at tree that doesn't care about whether it has room. Doesn't permanently die from from round up and grows new shoots from a root underground that can run forever?



I hate locust. I also hate Chinese tallow trees. Both are invasive weeds as far as I'm concerned. At our previous place, we had Chinese tallow trees. I finally resorted to Remedy to kill them. Greybeard can explain how to use Remedy. I am as organic as I can be, but there are some situations that just have no other answer to solve the problem. I did not just spray the whole area, I sprayed the stump after we cut them down or I hacked into the trunk with an axe or hatchet, then sprayed the wound.


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## Reindeermama (Jul 18, 2018)

Thank you so much for doing this series of posts. I am trying to get our pastures in shape, and they need help. Our local agent said we have so many weesatche, we need to spray with remedy. The dexter cows have been eating some weeds. I need to find a book so I can Identify the weeds. I have four sheep coming, hopefully that will help, while I research remedy. Te information in these posts about pasture in one place, and so well written help, and explain things I wasn't really understanding.


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## greybeard (Jul 18, 2018)

Reindeermama said:


> Our local agent said we have so many weesatche, we need to spray with remedy.


I really wasn't going to get into species specific control method yet, but will address these 2.

I am pretty sure you are talking about Huisache.  I haven't had to deal with any of that since I moved East from West Texas, but it's about like trying to control Tallow or Mesquite. Spot spray with a diesel remedy mix and you want to do it during that plant's growing season which is in the middle of summer here, when it's hot. Huisache is one of those plants where it is more effective to spray the stem or trunk than to spray the leaves....called basal application*. Wet the stem from the ground up to about 12" above the ground but not to the point the mixture runs off on the ground. Remedy has no soil active ingredient so it won't do any good to wet the area around the plant...besides, the diesel in the mix will kill your grass. Keep a low pressure low flow stream on the stem. 
The mix ratio is going to depend on whether is is an older multi stemmed plant or a younger single stemmed plant. 
diesel15%:85% Remedy for the younger plants.
25% diesel:75% Remedy on the older multi stemmed ones, which is the same ratio I use on Tallow trees. 
Yes, It can get expensive since the last Remedy Ultra I bought at the co-op in Bryan was $140 for 2.5 gallons or $87 for 1 gallon. You don't want to waste any running it off on the ground. The diesel is used as a penetrant..it doesn't really act as a herbicide.

myStang89.. I'm not sure which Locust you have. Honey Locust (the one with the horrible thorns) or Black Locust. I have never tried to kill or control a black locust..they are a desirable tree here, as they make great fence posts and take years and years to rot even in wet ground.







  1st, let ,me say I am NOT a fan of Roundup or any of it's generics for anything except keeping grass and weeds down around my house and yard, and then only to avoid having to weed eat much. DO understand, glyphosate can and does vaporize and translocate  if used in hot weather and it can settle in places and on plants you don't want it. 
1. I'm always leery of anything that claims to 'do it all' and Roundup/glyphosate  pretty much makes that claim.
2. Roundup is mostly a foliar (leaf) applied herbicide, and it works pretty good on some weeds and most grasses, but for brush and trees, not so much when applied as a foliar application. Yes, it makes the leaves quickly change colors, die,  then drop off too fast, and along with them, the herbicide. For brush and undesirable trees, you want the tree to continue functioning until the chemical has time to affect the root system, especially on species like Tallow, Locust, Sweet gum and most cedars. (Cedar is a big problem here, and they suck tremendous amounts of moisture from the ground that our forages and desirable trees need..and they drop lots of seeds) 

Sounds like someone cut down a more mature locust and didn't treat the stump...a very common problem. Cutting down the tree (or even uprooting the thing) encourages any of the roots to send up suckers from any of the lateral roots left in the ground. There are quite a few species that do this.  As I said in the opening paragraph, the part of the vascular system called the phloem is a 2 way street. It can sent nutrient rich water up the trunk to the leaves or sugar rich liquid down to the roots as necessary. It is important, that IF a tree is cut down and you don't want 6 of it's family to come to it's funeral, you need to treat the stump immediately to kill the root system--within 15 minutes of sawing it down. If you wait too long, a thick viscous material from the Zyleum will form on top of the stump and seal it off.  (Stumps can be treated any time of the year, as long as the above practice is used, but IMO, it works better in the fall as most of the movement in the vascular system is downward to the roots anyway in anticipation of winter coming on)Your problem with the locust is is a bit different.

Another method, which I employ a lot, is not to cut the mature tree down at all. Kill it standing. A frill cut is made around the outside of the trunk ( I currently use a hatchet) and a small amount of diesel/herbicide mix  or even straight  herbicide is squirted into the frill cut immediately. Just a few squirts is all that is needed. On any tree  about 3" in diameter, I just make 3 cuts, downward at an angle, about waist high, and from a 1 qt spray bottle, with the nozzle set to a stream (not mist) I lightly squirt a little in each cut. If the tree is bigger in diameter, I have to make more cuts. Some people will girdle the whole trunk, cutting the bark back all the way around. I'm not a fan of that way as I want the tree to have a few vascular paths left open to carry the herbicide both up and down. (not recommended for a tree that may die and fall on your house, barn or car) 

But, since your primary original Locust tree is long gone and you are dealing with the suckers from it's roots, you will want to do the basal spray  thing, and I recommend doing it in the fall on plants outside in the sun, again, just before the leaves start to change colors. With your's growing inside the shed, I suppose you can do it any time of the year, but I've never tried it inside. (again, I've not much experience at all with Black Locusts) 

IF the original stump were still there, I have had some luck taking a chainsaw, cuting a couple of inches off the top of the stump, exposing new live wood and doing the cut stump treatment to that original 'mother tree's' stump. On fair sized stumps, remember, you don't need to cover the whole top surface, usually just the outer 2 inches where the cambium (vascular)  layers are located. The center is usually dead sapwood that no longer carries anything up or down.


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## mystang89 (Jul 18, 2018)

Baymule said:


> I hate locust. I also hate Chinese tallow trees. Both are invasive weeds as far as I'm concerned. At our previous place, we had Chinese tallow trees. I finally resorted to Remedy to kill them. Greybeard can explain how to use Remedy.





greybeard said:


> myStang89.. I'm not sure which Locust you have. Honey Locust (the one with the horrible thorns) or Black Locust. I have never tried to kill or control a black locust..they are a desirable tree here, as they make great fence posts and take years and years to rot even in wet ground.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



    I actually have both locus at my location however its the black locus which is coming up in the pasture.  When I cut them down the locus is what was used for my fence posts and I am very grateful that it was there.  It also provided an excellent firewood and sign.  It's a wonderful tree which keeps providing....quite literally.  I know that if I cut one tree down that more will pop up around it providing me with more firewood in the future years.  

    However, the previous owners had allowed the locus to grow into the fence line and into their pasture.  So when I moved in I needed to take care of them and open everything up again.  I didn't know about having to take care of the tree quickly after cutting it down so thank you for that piece of knowledge for the future.  (I still have more fence line that needs clearing from locus.  I'll have to look up "Remedy" and see about getting some.  I have about 20 or so stumps to get to however these stumps don't even come 2 in" above the ground so I'll probably have to take the chainsaw in from the top down, making an insert into it so I can poor the remedy mixture in.  Do you believe that will allow the poison into the vascular tissue of the wood?


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## greybeard (Jul 18, 2018)

Reindeermama said:


> I have four sheep coming, hopefully that will help, while I research remedy.



Before I tell you what I know about Remedy, NEVER believe every glowing thing any herbicide, feed supplement or breed association says...more on that later in the thread.
I keep this website bookmarked..you can find the specimen labels (instructions) and the MSDS of almost any product by any brand in the USA.
http://www.cdms.net/label-database

Remedy Ultra:
http://www.cdms.net/ldat/ld7NR013.pdf

Remedy Ultra (the current version of Remedy) is:
1. In most states, an unrestricted herbicide, meaning you don't need an applicator's license to buy it. 
2. Active ingredient is Triclopyr. 
3. Inactive ingredients, are a trade secret. 
4. It mixes equaly well with water, diesel, and most crop (vegetable) oils especially canola (rape seed) oil, but those oils are often much more expensive than diesel. 
5. It's a selective broadleaf herbicide that will not harm most grasses tho it can kill or at yeast damage forages such as clover and alfalfa.
6. It has no soil activity..no residual action. (It acts only on the plant itself and  it's root system)
7. It mixes good with other herbicides such as 2,4-d, & Sendero.
8. Like most herbicides, it needs a non-ionic surfactant mixed with it..the surfactant makes the droplets spread out over the leaf and stem instead of beading up.  Many people use dishwater detergent as a surfactant. I'm not a big fan of doing it. 
9. Unless things have changed, you can legally only apply 8qts per acre per year on non-grazed land and only 2 qts per acre on grazed range land.  That, is a LOT of herbicide, considering the usual tank mix recommendation for my use was & is 1-2 qts Remedy/100 gallons of water.  Regardless..do not exceed those limits..It's The Law!
10. When I was in West Texas and we were using Remedy for prickly pear, huisache, and mesquite control. We moved the cattle, goats and sheep off the area being treated for 48 hours and then let them back in to graze. But, the label states there are no grazing restrictions or time limits for Remedy Ultra. YRMV.
11. Watch how much you are spraying as a spot spray..it is a lot easier to exceed the annual allowed limit when spot spraying than when broadcast spraying. 
12. Keep it away from water. It can kill aquatic life and aquatic plants.

There are other herbicides labeled for huisache such as Sendero, I have used it, didn't like it, has a LOT of restrictions Remedy does not have, and unless things have changed,  it is not labeled for most states. I believe only for Tx, Ok, La, Az, and NM, and it's more expensive than Remedy Ultra. IIRC, $136/gallon.
http://www.cdms.net/ldat/ldAIF005.pdf


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## greybeard (Jul 18, 2018)

mystang89 said:


> Do you believe that will allow the poison into the vascular tissue of the wood?


Depends how long ago the tree was cut. If more than a couple months ago at the most, I doubt the live vascular system extends very far up into the stump. Using a cordless and drilling farther down into the cut stump, staying out on the edges where the vascular areas are, you'll probably have better luck. And in that instance, Roundup may even work. 

But again, I don't have experience with black locust.


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## greybeard (Jul 19, 2018)

pH as we've seen, is important to a plant's ability to grow, but what do we do to make the pH of our soil 'right' ...and should we?
A soil test tells us what our pH is, but we also have to know what our perennial forage of choice likes or does well in. That, is part of your long range 'vision'.

I am not a fan of jumping to every new forage that is developed, imported or otherwise comes down the pike. In the late 50s thru the 70s, a whole slew of different grasses were the darling of agriculture, heavily promoted and some fell flat on their faces after farmers and ranchers had spent considerable time and expense to grow them. Alicia, Argentine, African Star, and Pensacola Bahia, all the different bermudas, the Tiftons, and a dozen others. My father tried about 4 of them here, as well as different clovers and none except Pensacola Bahia and Coastal Bermuda worked really well. (Bahia and coastal have been around so long now both are considered domestic)

pH adjustment is not like fertilize. In a small garden or flowerbed setting, it's pretty easy to quickly change the pH but in a pasture of grazing or hay grass, it's slower..much much slower. You can apply NPK  fertilize or organic biomass (composted animal poop) and see the results in just days after a good rain, whereas it takes months and even longer to change the pH in a pasture. It's why you need to start planning early.  We won't go into a lot of different specifics because there are just too many variables in the forage types, location, basic soil types and drainage but to raise pH from acid to closer to neutral, the application of lime or gypsum is the most common method and it takes a lot of it.* To lower from an alkaline pH toward or just below neutral 7, the most commonly used method is applying sulfur, tho there are a few other ways. Sphagnum moss for instance, but it would be extremely cost prohibitive to lower pH using this on a pasture of any size.

So, we take our soil samples or get the extension agent to come out and do it, send it off and get the results back. Usually the results tell you more than just pH. They will also recommend any fertilize applications needed, but for now and first, you want to begin getting the pH where you want it. Unless you live very close to a crushed limestone plant or quarry, it can get expensive  due to trucking costs and the more you need, the more trips the trucks have to make. Yes, trucks...plural.

Just to get an idea how much it takes to raise or lower pH, here's a chart or 2 but these are general recommendations and your's will likely differ.




 



 


These tables and more info on changing pH can be found at:
http://vric.ucdavis.edu/pdf/Soil/ChangingpHinSoil.pdf


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## mystang89 (Jul 20, 2018)

Once again, thanks for the breakdown. Seems the only thing really stopping people from changing the pH of the soil is money. Other than that it's simply. Spread this, or spread that.


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## greybeard (Jul 20, 2018)

But because pH adjustment is slow, with a little adjustment being within weeks or months and more adjustment toward the intended goal as the months progress, and even tho the outlay has to be done at the time of purchase and spreading, that cost gets spread out over the time period the adjustment is good for. That, can be years. (most agriculture purchases and outlays should be viewed in this manner anyway...the cost of a tractor for instance, should be viewed as divided by the number of years you are going to be using it)

A little more about pH so we know what constitutes the difference between high and low pH. It's not just the number of H ions, but what kind that determine the pH :
pH is a measure or 0-14 scale of potential hydrogen ions in the soil that are available to the plant. It is an inverse scale, (kind of like wire gage is--the smaller the # the bigger the wire diameter.) to represent the number  and type ions instead of having to state the number of ions per sq centimeter.

Acidic soil gives a pH # of under 7 and it means there are way too many + charged hydrogen ions available and each number on the pH scale is a multiple of 10 in contrast to the number below it. A soil with a pH of 6.0 has ten times as many positively charged hydrogen ions (H+) present than a soil with a soil pH of 7.0.
We all know that water is a molecule made up of 2 hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. H2O. Delving further down into the properties of water, it (water) often changes the hydrogen atom into a Hydroxide, because 1 of the H atoms has lost it nucleus, and this gives it a negative charge instead of the +charge H usually has.
Alkaline soil (pH above 7) has more ions that are negatively charged Hydrogen atoms bound to an oxygen atom than it does the H+ ions.
Soils at or very close to neutral 7 have an equal number of - and + charged H ions. 
This is as far as I'm able or willing to go to explain what happens in soil except to say adding lime or sulfur type additives to the soil causes molecular changes to the H atoms in the water molecules, by either knocking off an electron or adding one to the H atoms that are attached to each tiny particle of soil, whether it is sandy loam, or clay soils.


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## Latestarter (Jul 20, 2018)

When I tried to open the first two attachments It wouldn't let me... I got the following:


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## Bruce (Jul 20, 2018)

Me too.

I think I mostly have clay loam. Looks like a LOT of lime if you need to bring the pH up.


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## greybeard (Jul 20, 2018)

Latestarter said:


> When I tried to open the first two attachments It wouldn't let me... I got the following:
> View attachment 50429



Should be visible now.......


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## Latestarter (Jul 20, 2018)

Got it, didn't realize it was the tables presented in the third link, which I was able to D/L and read. Thanks


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## greybeard (Jul 20, 2018)

Bruce said:


> I think I mostly have clay loam. Looks like a LOT of lime if you need to bring the pH up.


Limestone is heavy.  Depending on a few factors, 1 ton of limestone could be a small as 1 cu yard. Other sizes may be as much as twice that volume for the same weight. It is spread very thin..it's not like you are going to go out there and see a solid mat of finely ground limestone, and in fact, you have to get down on your hands and knees and look close to even see it after it is spread.  The standard 2 axle dump trucks you so often see on the road are 14 cu yards.......however, limestone weighs so much per yard that most can't carry a full 14 yards of limestone because of axle and road weight restrictions.

Look at it from a different angle..it doesn't take a large volume to equal one ton of ag lime.
It only takes about 4 tablespoons of lime spread over 1 sq ft to raise pH 2 full points Example--from a 5 to a 7. There are 44,000 sq ft per ac.  X4=176,000 tablespoons to treat one acre. 


or..There are 27 cu ft in one cu yard. One cu ft of dolemite lime powdered ag lime weighs 87 to 93 lbs. 27 X87=2.3 tons.


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## Bruce (Jul 20, 2018)

That is a lot of crawling around on my hands and knees with a bag of lime and a table spoon  I do have a seed/fertilizer spreader, I guess it could handle lime. That would make the task take only ...... about a year of pushing the little thing around the fields   I bet it is a lot faster with a tractor and a real spreader though.


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## Senile_Texas_Aggie (Aug 25, 2018)

Mr. @greybeard, sir,

    Will you be posting any more to this thread?  I have saved every one of your posts to this thread so far, so I don't want to miss out in case more is on the way.

Senile Texas Aggie


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## greybeard (Aug 26, 2018)

Yes, I will.


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## Senile_Texas_Aggie (Feb 23, 2019)

Mr. @greybeard, sir,

I hope you will continue to post to this thread.  I almost always learn something from your posts.  

Senile Texas Aggie


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