Pasture clearing - McCartney Rose

[Keithb]

We have a 160 acre tract in pasture that contains roughly 60 acres that has a great deal of the rosehedge (we call it) or McCartney rose hedge. We're down in Central South Texas near the coast. My great-grandfather planted this as a permanent fence line in the early 1900's or so and they have become a major nuissance.

We used to spray this aerially with airplane and Grazon P+D but still couldn't kill but somewhat controlled it. We stopped that and they got out of hand.

My father-in-law has a large backhoe so we have been pushing these in piles and plan to burn them this weekend if this front isn't too strong of winds on Sunday.

My question would be, should I spray these before pushing them and let them die? Or should I continue pushing these, burn them, then go back and spray afterwards?

I've been spraying Remedy and used Spike in the past and the spike worked best. I just don't have the time for them to die and want to get this cleared fast. I'm wondering if I'm making a mistake by pushing them before moving them. We've got roughly 15 acres cleared so far. I'm wanting to just bush hog after it's all pushed and knock down the remaining limbs, etc then broadcast spray the pasture.

What exactly on the plant causes them to spread? Is it the thorns, the blooms? They seem to take off no matter where they're dropped.

Then what do I do? The ground below all this is nice sandy soil. I am thinking about planting Jigs next spring on my neighbors first cutting, or sprig my alicia bermudagrass that we have in our hay fields.

[Windy in Kansas]

First off welcome to the forums, I'm glad you decided to make a post.

Had it been me I would have preferred to kill the roses before doing any digging so that they wouldn't come back from the roots. However since in the past you were spraying and not getting a complete kill that would indicate my thoughts wouldn't have worked anyway.

If you are going to burn them I don't see the need for spraying them before they are dug. Most any spray would take a few weeks to do a thorough job of working properly.

My thoughts are that you are on the right track but then I certainly don't know about your area of the country.

Again, welcome to the forums. Feel free to checkout an use all of them. Takes awhile before you can use General Chat but it can get pretty intense at times anyway.

[agmantoo]

Is this plant also referred to as mulitflora rose?

[Pony]

Sure sounds like that darned multi-flora rose.

Have you ever considered goats?

If goats are out, then 'dozing them should do the trick. Don't waste money on spray if you're going to doze and burn.

But goats are fun, and they sure do love those roses!

[Keithb]

I don't have any close-ups on this pc, but here's a pic from my trail cam I have around a feeder. You'll notice the dark green patch right between the feeder legs. That is a fairly large bush. It has blooms (roses I assume) also which are white. The large bush to the right is what I pushed with a backhoe to clear the right of way for the deer feeder.

Remedy, Garlon4, or Spike work well on these. All it is is branches with thorns that make up the entire bush. These things are a nuissance if you ask me. We have been fighting these for years.



I may plan on just using the backhoe when I can and worry about the small ones later where they are easier to spray and control. Shredding these only spread them and make it 100 times worse. To me, it seems the plant is dead on the under layers and only the outer layers are green. All other stems don't have green leaves, only the outer layers.

My father-in-law is letting me use the backhoe when it's not on an oil field job, so that is a great thing. Without that, my little JD 5103 would struggle with some of these. We have piles of these on about 15 acres that we pushed together as big as 30x40. Gonna be a good bon fire this weekend if the weathers right. We just got 4.5 inches of rain so that makes me feel better about burning.

[Keithb]

We have considered goats. We only have a 5 strand barb wire fence on the 160 acres, so I wasn't sure if we could contain them. I do know they'll eat this hedge though from others. I might throw a few in here just to help control it.

We're currently leasing this pasture out, but I plan to re-claim the land, and then take over the pasture and put my own cattle on it. I'm cramped on my 5 acres I pulled out for the kids' cows and horse. Plus I'd like to get back in the cattle business.

[agmantoo]

Here would be my attempt.
Continue what you are doing with the mechanical removal. Then I would get a good sized rotary cutter and I would modify it. I would mount a herbicide tank on top of the rotary cutter and I would install a drip tube and an electric 12 volt solenoid valve (lawn irrigation cheap item) below the drip tube. Each time I brush hogged the area and I saw a rose I would activate the solenoid and drip Grazon onto the rotary cutter blade. To do this you need a barbed fitting mounted above each blade on the rotary cutter. The Grazon would be mixed with a surfactant at the maximum level. With persistence this should eliminate the rose. A herbicide wiper could also be used to wipe glyphosphate when the rose is taller than the crop/forage on the acreage. The combination of mechanical weakening the plant and the two herbicides will cause the rose to succumb. Remember this, anything can be made to work if you work on it long enough! If the rose is creating a lot of flat tires on the front wheels of the tractor install a set of airplane tires, works great.

[Keithb]

Yea, I plan to actually go back and broadcast spray after I get through pushing these with Remedy. I have a 24' swath nozzles on my 4-wheeler and a 32' boom sprayer I might use as well. I'll then re-evaluate this in the spring of next year. My preference of Remedy is the cost comparison to Grazon. I can't remember what we used to pay for it, but we used to buy it by the 30 gallon drum and I don't have the funds my parents used to have.


Is anyone familiar with these? Man these things are rough. I have repaired my rear tire but not sure if it was from the thorn bushes.

I may have to spot spray later after they get a little bigger.

[Allen W]

Remedy will only work if you have enough folage for it to be absorbed by the plant. Remedy and Spike are both good tools, Spike may work slower but would have some residual effect to help keep down new sprouts.

Most of your older type rose bushes readily root when a branch is in contact with the ground, would these do the same?

[Keithb]

I believe you are correct Allen. My grandmother always told me to lay the rose cutting horizontal in the pot, and this pretty much applies here I believe. I would guess that's how they spread. I'm going to try and go behind with my small FEL with box blade and scrape all cuttings into a pile and burn them. I'm sure some will pop up, but they will be a lot easier to control being small.

Garlon is a basal spray, so I'm thinking that would work for the broadcast method. I would mix with 5-10 gallons of water per acre mixture with surfactant. Remedy, Garlon 4, and Element 4 are pretty much the same chemical.

Spike rolled the fenceline that I used it on last year, but I heard they pulled that from the market? If it were cheaper, I'd dump it all in a fertilizer spreader and broadcast that out like fertilizer.

The only downfall to this is I will lose all the cover for the deer we have in our area. They migrated in 5-6 years ago and I hate to push them out.

[Honorine]

The McCartney rose is a Bracteata, is this it?

http://www.helpmefind.com/plant/pl.php?n=11797&tab=1

I don't know much about it as its a warm area rose only.

Multiflora on the other hand is a serious monster, very cold hardy and invasive, I've seen clumps of it 10 feet high and 30 feet across. It reproduces by root runners, can also root where canes touch the ground, even chopped up pieces of canes can root in the right conditions. Add insult to injury birds broadcast the seeds when they eat the small round hips. Nasty nasty thing to fight, does this look like your rose?

http://www.helpmefind.com/plant/pl.php?n=56739

[Keithb]

The first URL looks like it is right on the money. People actually plant these things for landscaping? I may be setting on a goldmine out here then. It is a very hardy plant.

I do know my grandfather shred his down for years and it just seemed to spread them so I'm assuming the cuttings were the culprits. We are starting to see them in a now pasture that was row crop farmland up until 12 or so years ago so I'm assuming something picked clippings up and dropped them out in the middle.

The only thing I disagree with is the size. Some of these bushes are upwards to 12-15' in height and some became 20' + in diameter. Although these weren't treated for some years with herbicides.

I'll have to get some decent pictures to post here. If they spread and come up small, I'll at least be able to spray them. The way they were, it would take a great deal of herbicide to kill them, although a handful of spike did the trick per bush but was a very slow kill. It took several months for it to leech into the soil. I'll try to get some pics tomorrow if I get to go burn them and post them here.

Another pest we are fighting is Yellow Nutsedge. I have 2 1/2 gallons of Weedmaster I plan to spray on some to make sure it will kill it. I've considered broadcasting Roundup in the winter when the bermuda is dormant.

Thanks to you all for all of your help and ideas. I'm hoping to one day rid our land of all of these hedges that literally took over our pastures. Down in our area, these things are all over the place, as well as the yellow nutsedge.

[Allen W]

How wide spread of a problem is it in your area? Very localized or spread over a larger area of the state? The bigger the problem the more information there will be on it's control. I would ask a local chemical dealer or extension agent their recommendations on how to deal with it. Brush control can be an expensive and slow project. Gather as much information as you can.


Here is an ag chemical label website that you can look up labels for most common ag chemicalshttp://www.cdms.net/LabelsMsds/LMDef...spx?ms=1,2,3,4. It's handy to look up a herbicide, if you know the name, and see what it is labeled for and how to apply it.

[Keithb]

Thanks Allen. It's fairly widespread in the southern part of Texas. I've seen it as far north as San Antonio down towards the Corpus Christi area. The Texas Dept. of Ag recommends Remedy, Grazon, etc. They offer the service of viewing the area and determining what to spray so I may try that route also once I get them all cleared out. I've seen other pastures that were pushed clear and I believe they just broadcast after they clear it out.

Some farmers philosophy around here is if you keep it shredded it will control it. This may be true for some weeds, but after they've seeded it does no good. Herbicide is the only option a lot of the times.

I plan to just take my time with spraying it continuously to control it once the small ones pop up. Thanks again for the info. I wish someone who has done what I've done would give their experience as this plant is a bear to deal with.