Burning cattails

[fishhead]

I've got some thick patches of dried cattails that I want to burn next spring.

Is it better to burn them standing or to somehow knock them down?

What about slight breeze vs still air?

[WayneR]

Search the myriad uses for this valuable plant. The seed heads can be eaten when young, the mature seed head "fluff" can be used as padding & insulation.
The roots can be prepared and used like potatoes.

There are probably many others

[fishhead]

I'm trying to burn off the dead leaves. The cattails are in a commercial fish pond and are preventing me from controlling the reproduction of my rosyred minnows. That leads to too many minnows which results in undersized unmarketable minnows in the fall.

[Jennifer L.]

The marsh by me burns occasionally when someone is careless. They don't need to be knocked down, they burn fine just as they stand there. The marsh here is quite a few acres and it doesn't all go at once even when it does burn--I think the water kind of controls things to a certain extent.

Jennifer

[rambler]

I think the social busy bodies in my liberal state would have a heart attack, & when they got out of the hospital would throw your rear in jail for even thinking of burning a wetland plant...... I'm only _slightly_ exagerating here, if you cut the hay on a state aid highway you get a letter if you mow a cattail off.......

--->Paul

[texican]

I think burning cattails is only a temp solution. They WILL grow back. I've burnt them repeatedly, when the water in my lake is low. I think it actually stimulates them, and they grow back even thicker. The only solution I've found, is to pull them out... and you'll still have bits of the tubers left in the ground to regrow.

Since the goats have discovered them, they're making a dent in them... I think the key is to reintroduce the goats to them, in the spring, when they start regrowing.

[JJ Grandits]

I've controlled them in one of my clients pond by repeatedly grass trimming them down every few weeks. After awhile you exhaust the tuber and the problem is gone. Later on just hit then as soon as they start to come up.

[fishhead]

I'm trying to get rid of the dead leaves because they provide a surface for my fish to stick their eggs on. They also prevent me from pulling my seine.

I hit them with herbicide this fall and will hit them as soon as I see green in the spring and keep hitting them until they are completely gone.

They are in a commercial manmade levee type pond so there is no problem with me eliminating them. I've seen my goats stand in water up to their belly to eat the leaves but the stands are way too big for my few goats.

I guess I won't bother to try to knock them down before burning. Thanks Jennifer.

Is it better to burn on a still day or one with a slight breeze?

[ceresone]

If any liberals want to pull up all the cattails in my pond--PLEASE< PLEASE!! Somehow they have to be killed off, They're a invasive plant, only greater pest is the red-winged black birds residing in them. Wish all could be killed off!
and before everyone is shocked, remember the trees of cherries, peaches, apples, plants like blackberries, raspberries, strawberries-that the red winged devils destroy--and their home is the cattails on my pond.

[fishhead]

This "liberal" is going to kill those cattails. They are a valuable plant in the right place but my manmade pond is not the right place.

Is it better to burn them on a still day or wait for a breeze and light them up on the upwind side?

[WayneR]

If practical, a slight breeze would help. The smoke should blow away from the pond, to reduce ash ,co & co2 disolving into the water.

JJ Grandits' suggestion will negate the need for herbacide.

[Jim S.]

I am still cracking up over your response to "liberal" and cattails, fishhead. How the heck those two get tied together in the synapses of some, I dunno. I know environmentalists of all political persuasions, myself, and there are even fundamentalist Christian envrionmental groups.

Anyhow, for what it's worth, this pretty well covers all the options...

http://scnyat.cce.cornell.edu/woodpo...%20Control.pdf

[fishhead]

Thanks Jim. Yeah the political labels are usually pretty worthless and most likely the product of some think tank political machine.


Wayne,

It's a matter of scale in this case. I've managed to prevent cattail stands in my smaller 1/2 acre ponds by immediately pulling them when I see them but my negligence has allowed them to get established in my larger 2 1/2 acre ponds and now the stands total at least an acre. That's far too much to cut down by hand even once. I've done big jobs like that in the past but it's time for me to find less labor intensive ways of doing things. I still pull a 200' x 8' 1/16" mesh seine by myself and by hand about 30 times each season but even that is going to change as soon as I can build a portable puller that can be operated from a distance by a single person.

The cattails prevented/delayed me from producing a crop on more than 1/2 of my farm this season. I can finish growing them early next season but it's still a major hit to cash flow.

The ash will help boost primary productivity in the pond and give my fish an early food supply to get them off to a good start next spring.

I've tried to eliminate herbicides on my fish farm but surprisingly the biggest obstacle has been our MN DNR Fisheries section.

[WayneR]

Very Good

[fishhead]

I had thought that a slight breeze might help by pushing the heat sideways into new fuel. Now I just have to wait for the right conditions.

[Cabin Fever]

Don't burn them today!

Are you going to use a torch on an LP tank or kerosene in a garden sprayer?

[rambler]

Originally Posted by fishhead

Thanks Jim. Yeah the political labels are usually pretty worthless and most likely the product of some think tank political machine.

You would have to live in Minnesota to understand - sorry it doesn't make much sense to out of staters.

In Minesota many of the rural folks in farming area tend to be conservative, while the 'downtown' area of Minneapolis/ St. Paul tends to be very liberal minded. (Up by Cabin Fever there is a different mix - sensible liberals, actually.....)

It sets up some conflict.

The downtowm metro folks seem to like to tell the ag people how they should conduct their lives with wetlands, livestock, well, and other rules & laws. These don't always make sense, or have any positive result.

So, there is a built in conservative/liberal bias in this state.

I'm sure some of the conservative ideas from out in the ag tutal areas also would make no sense in the metro area.

Sorry for going off-topic, I don't want a political debate here, just hopefully explaining myself.

Saying the city do-gooders really put odd restrictions on rural areas they don't undserstand would probably be more politically accepted 'here', tho would be the same exact thing as I did say and just as much a 'label'.

Many man-made water structures down here in the southern part of Minnesota have been 'claimed' by the state as a wetland, because it fits the basic definition. Things got real ugly here in late 1980's, the govt took over. I'm amazed at what some of you can get away with as far as drainage, tree removal, etc. Mostly brought on by the metro areas wanting to do good, but not understanding what they were supporting.....


None of this helps the fella burn his brush off, sorry for that. I think a light wind, very light, would help, & burning them rarely gets rid of anything for very long. Deepening that area of the pond would help. Rodeo is the water-approved version of roundup which might help thing them over the years if sprayed in spring.

--->Paul

[fishhead]

I thought I would use a 20# propane tank and a plumbers furnace mounted on a pole since I don't have a real weed burner. I'll probably do it when there is ice on the pond so I can walk on the ice. The tops of the dikes have only short grass so I don't expect any spread unless I do it on a day like today. In that case the farmers cornfield would probably go up in smoke. I'll keep a snowshovel handy to smother any wayward flames just in case.

I seem to remember the DNR saying that burning wasn't too successful below 50 degrees F so I'm probably looking at late winter.

[Windy in Kansas]

I would want the fire to be as hot as possible to get rid of as much residue as possible. Therefore I would burn with them standing to get good air flow, also with some breeze to fan the fire. Winter burning would somewhat lower the burn time and temp.

[Jennifer L.]

Dry cattails burn with a high flame, might as well be paper when they go off, but it's over really fast. I wouldn't try it with too much of a breeze because of it.

Jennifer