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first plot

muddy

muddy

Well-Known Member
Didnt come up real well, but I'll have some solid goldfinch hunting this fall.


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Im not sure what you planted but unless your neighbors like birds that's not an ideal plot.... I'm with 6x6 try mowin and see what happens!!!
 
With the thistles blooming, probably not enough time for herbicide to kill them before seed set.

Mow now, spray later.

For Canuck thistles, Milestone is great and extremely expensive. I picked up some Crossbow at Orscehlons last week and sprayed a couple of thistle patches. We will see.....
 
Stinger works great on thistle too. Cheaper than Milestone....but not cheap. Depending what you have underneath and are trying to grow will help determine what, if any herbicide to use. That's some serious thistle seed bed, for sure!! Definitely mow ASAP, and go from there.

What were you trying to grow in the plot?
 
Hit it hard with Stinger ASAP!
Mow ASAP!

If that goes to seed, it'll take awhile to get anything but thistles to grow there.

I had a small field that was covered in thistles that went to seed.
It took me 3 years of spraying with Stinger to get the thistles under control, after the one year they went to seed.

Good luck!
 
Actually your best bet now is to cut them down with a machete and haul them away to burn in that little wagon, behind the mini van:drink1:
 
My boys and I spend about a week every spring cutting, bagging and burning those devil weeds around our farm! If you mow them once they head out like that they will still dry down and fluff seed. You must get rid of them completely, then remember to get after them EARLY next spring with chemicals before they are mature enough to head out. You stirred up some dormant seed when working your plot and it will only get worse if you don't get after them right away. Damn I hate those vile things!!! :mad:
 
Mine looked like that a month ago but it was goldenrod that had taken over. Mowed it twice and the clover is looking great. Get to work Muddy.
 
Skully said:
My boys and I spend about a week every spring cutting, bagging and burning those devil weeds around our farm! If you mow them once they head out like that they will still dry down and fluff seed. You must get rid of them completely, then remember to get after them EARLY next spring with chemicals before they are mature enough to head out. You stirred up some dormant seed when working your plot and it will only get worse if you don't get after them right away. Damn I hate those vile things!!! :mad:
Click to expand...

I don't know where Muddy's plot was, but as an FYI I had a somewhat similar looking result a few years back trying to get a clover plot established. That is, there were zillions of thistles coming up and that caught me off guard as I hadn't experienced anything like that in several other plot locations on the same farm.

What I think I figured out is that the area that was thistle infested had at one time years ago been a bare dirt stock yard of sorts between two barns. So I think that when I cleared the mostly brome grass off of this area and scratched the dirt, probably for the first time in 30 or 40 years or so in this specific area, the thistles sprouted like crazy. Does anyone know how long thistle seed will lay dormant in the soil?

The area that I had trouble with used to have cattle and/or horses on it and according to a neighbor with a historical recollection of my farm. Perhaps there is a propensity for areas that previously were bare dirt and/or held livestock to have a dormant thistle seed bank...
 
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