Noxious Weeds

Well then, I am just wondering how/why the "cattle man" who has been leasing our land for over 20 years (for next to nothing - no rate increase since the orginal lease) has let it get so bad? Especially when he is the County Commissioner?

Especially when he has bought all of the other 80 acres tracts surrounding ours to expand his grazing fields (the other tracts that belonged to the Crow family's original homestead.) He has had carte blanche use of this land for years, and has hounded my FIL to purchase.

Seems to me he'd want to take care of it better (especially if the noxious weeds can effect his surrounding land) ... unless, he wants to acquire our land through so-called "neglect" on our part?

I am really bothered by this, and am anxious to get out there and stake our rightful claim before my MIL gets an official letter in the mail saying she owes thousands of dollars in fines.

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I LOVE DONUT BALLS

i dont like to think tooo much before i speak ... heehee ... i like to be just as surprised as you are.

OH! And thank you all very much for all of your thoughts on this matter ... we need to be armed with good info on how to tackle this issue.

I suppose one of those flame torch thingies would be irresponsible

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I LOVE DONUT BALLS

i dont like to think tooo much before i speak ... heehee ... i like to be just as surprised as you are.

Kind of reminds me of a small war between Iowa and Kansas back in the '60s or '70s. Iowa declared the sunflower a noxious weed. This being the KS state flower they quickly took offence and declared the goldfinch (the Iowa state bird) a public nuisance.

One man's weed might very well be another's flower. One man's favorite bird might be another's nuisance.


How about if your neighbors got together and decided your house was an eyesore and bringing down their property values and came to you with the idea that you spend $5,000 to fix it up?

Or say you had a classic '57 chevy on blocks in your front lawn and you kept it there as a lawn ornament because you liked to wake up in the morning and have a cup of joe on the front porch while admiring this lawn sculpture. To you it is art while to your neighbors it is junk.

If it is your property why should you bend over backward to please the sensibilities of your neighbors? Who gets to determine if something is worthy of "public" action or whether it is private property capable of being possessed?

A local farmer was nice and let skydivers land on his farm. One broke a leg on landing and, after the lawsuit, was awarded the farm. His only consolation that he was "nice" to let them land there.

Why? Because the guy is a jerk or his lease with you folk doesn't call for him to care for it.

One of our three country commissioners here enacted a fire ban one day and was given a ticket the very next day for having an open fire that got away. Just because of who they are they often think themselves above the law or that they won't be ticketed, etc. Ours was as he should have been.

As someone else stated a land owner is generally given an official notice by certified mail and warned to control the problem or the county will do the controlling or hire it done and the cost will be put on their taxes.

Also, generally the ordinances are written stating a person must control the noxious weed. They really don't care how you do it whether by flaming, digging, or whatever as long as you do it legally. That basically means you will abide by the spray laws and use chemicals in accordance with labeling.

The city where I live is addressing the very topic you bring up in your first paragraph. It won't be a group of neighbors coming around, but it will be the city doing so after complaints are forcing the issue of blight, which affects property values and causes companies thinking of relocating to the area to take a second look. No new manufacturing sometimes means stagnation, then higher taxes, etc. all the while property values drop if blight is allowed. I don't like it but that is the way it is. In addition crime is often more rampant in blighted areas that well kept areas.

One way to have your yard art is simply to keep it registered and insured with taxes paid, but off of the blocks and washed on occasion so it appears roadworthy. Costly yard art in my opinion.

None of us likes government intrusion but we do have to look at the bigger picture as to whether there is benefit to all. Such as schools and taxes--for the greater good though, example, my daughter graduated long ago and even from a different school district but I've always had to pay taxes to help others receive a public education. Seems Walden mentions this.

I had to laugh the other day. I stopped at the Farm and Fleet store to pick up some flowers and here they had several pots of morning glory for sale. Now for any youngsters out there who have no memory of cultivating corn before the days of 2-4-d even the mention of morning glory will cause an old timey farmer's eyes to squint and a grim look come over his face.

The reason is these weeds would grow in patches, the cultivator would snag up a whole bundle between the shovels and the next you know you were mowing down corn with the bundle. You might have to get off every 10 feet to clean the shovels.

So I suggested to the saleslady that a little 2-4-d would take care of those weed problems she had back there. I don't think she saw the humor though, even after I explained it to her.

Edited to add:
I see both the sunflower and the morning glory are still on the Iowa list of noxious weeds. Can retailers sell noxious weeds?
http://plants.usda.gov/java/noxious?...e&statefips=19

Here is an article about an old guy in Lincoln, Nebraska who died because of weeds.
http://www.journalstar.com/articles/...b250205225.txt

I would like to point out that the city ordinance specified that NOXIOUS WEEDS were required to be cut below 6 inches and that these WEEDS were over 4 feet tall. There is no claim that the weeds in question were NOXIOUS but simply tall.

In any event the relatives are suing.

Here in Australia, if you find a declared noxious weed on your property, you are legally obliged to get rid of it. If you don't know how to go about it, the state government Department of Agriculture or Primary Industry will give advice and help if necessary. You no doubt have equivalent bodies in your part of the world. Why not contact them? It's unlikely they'll slap a penalty on you as a matter of course - it's in their interest to help you first. It's those who ignore the situation they'll punish.

I do it organic- by hand ore repeated mowing but I'm not sure if my thistles are the worst kind or not- my methods work so maybe these are not the multirooted sort.

Yea. As someone else said, sometimes those on the county board are some of the worse offenders..... Can't say I understand it, but seems to be human nature. Something you will have to sort out & deal with as best you can in your location.

It is typically up to the person who owns the land to discuss rent increases. If I am renting from you, I would not walk up offering more money - it's up to you to rework the lease when you feel it is no longer satisfactory. If there has been no rent increase in 20 years - that is up to the land owner - your family - to do.

One can stae in the lease that the renter needs to control the weeds, etc. However, if the weeds show up, the weed inspector/govt typically comes down on the people who own the land. They follow the tax base. It's not fair that way, but it is the way it is. So you could reword the lease to require the renter takes care of the weeds; but it might not happen & then what?

Typically the weed inspector people are real easy to deal with. They want the problem corrected, they don't want a lot of 'issues'. If you talk with them and work with them, they can be real nice people. Typically they start out just trying to get the problem corrected, no fines or nothing. Now, maybe your county inspector is a jerk and some sort of axe to grind & then it's different. but, typically, they are easy to work with.

If you make an honest effort to control the weeds, and something goes wrong you are often ok. Odd weather and the weeds bud & ripen at a non-normal time of year; mowing didn't work because of too much rain, or whatever - you made the effort to normally control the weeds, that is often good enough. Try better next year type of deal.....

The people that have problems with the weed inspectors are those with a point to prove, and talk about trespassing, and it's my property to do what I want, and so on.... Those are the ones who like to bash their head into a rock wall & try to prove their point.....

You realize you live in a society with other human beings and try to work things out & get along and try to keep your weeds under some control so the whole neighborhood doesn't suffer, and you will be fine. Intent goes a long way.

In your case, if you are being surrounded by a strong-arm commisioner that has designs on your land, then I understand your concern & there might be other things afoot. It's politics, you have to deal with that sort of situation locally, normal rules might not apply.

--->Paul

In my part of Minnesota, we have 3 types of thistle.

The dreaded Canadian - shudder. These are terrible. They are perannual - the patch grows bigger every year, & they live for decades. Thorns you need leather gloves, purple blossoms.

Milk or Sow thistle. These you can tough with bare hands, they have little thorns but very soft ones. They bleed a white milk, like a milkweed. They are annuals, but they produce _many_ seeds every year. They are easier to control, but the many many seeds make them a problem weed once they start in a patch. Yellow blossoms.

Bull thistle. These have horrid thorns - go through a typical leather glove. Cattle can't eat them, too thorny. Big purple blossom. These are biannual. They grow the first year, the second year they blossom, and then die. So they are very easy to kill with cultivation, or a hoe, or pulling hem (if you have stout gloves!). Even mowing them before they can bloom, in 2-3 years you will have broken their 2 year cycle. But they can get real bad in a pasture or medow that doesn't get mowed, and the thorns are so bad - they need to be controlled. They grow very large, 5 feet tall & many stalks, they can use up a lot of room and waste good grass growing area.

Those are the 3 types of thistle we have up here.

Canadian are the most miserable weed we have. Roundup has done a lot to get them - it will follow down the root & kill them from the bottom up. Many other common sprays only burn off the tops, the root keeps regrowing as it's hard to get a herbicide to flow down into the root mass. If you mow them, they just set a new head & vblossom out again - all year long. If you hoe/ till them, the root pieces all grow a shoot & form a new colony of them, roots tend to meet & tie together into a patch again. Once a patch is established, it is miserable to get rid of.

I spent more of my childhood 'harvesting' this weed than I did getting a real crop. Hate those things.

--->Paul

Rambler, I love your ramblings and appreciate you taking the time to explain so thoroughly how to deal with my situations (the cattle man AND the weeds.)

Thank you

__________________
I LOVE DONUT BALLS

i dont like to think tooo much before i speak ... heehee ... i like to be just as surprised as you are.

My apoplogies for the comment about dicamba pasture withdrawl. Grazing is OK after 7 days, with lactating animals. It is haying that you should not do for 37 days after dicamba spraying.