Anyone know an easy way to get rid of invasive ferns? Ferns that are roughly 2.5/3ft high cover the entire floor of the woods... It makes for great bedding during the winter when they die but are a pain in the *** now. Are there any benefits to these ferns? Any good way to get rid of them without chopping them down and using super concentrated round up on the roots, etc? The area I have highlighted in green is the area affected. If you want an idea of what they look like just google "Minnesota Fern".
I had the same issue in the food plot I was creating, round up didnt even kill it. I had to till the whole root system out of the ground. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I547 using Tapatalk
I don't have a good solution in the woods. But I can tell you that ferns thrive in low PH soils. If you have them in your plots that means your PH is prob pretty low. Obviously you won't be liming your entire woods so I can't help you out there. I wonder if there is something you can plant to block out the ferns?
An overabundance of ferns often also indicate too thick of a canopy choking off any other desirable understory growth. Our cabin is entering into a 15 year fenced management plan because of this very issue. It's going to involve removing the canopy (hard cut...almost cleared), then fencing to allow regenerative growth that won't get clipped by game as soon as it shoots up (Oaks, for instance, need a few years for the seedling to establish a viable, browse resistant root system). Not to say this is the only solution, or even the problem you'r experiencing, but like Brad mentioned, they don't really grow in high fertile areas.
Don't ferns like heavy shade? Maybe some hinge cuts would give you enough benefit in a few areas to open it up...
Thank you for that article! Although I wish they did comment more on controlling the ferns, I did get the idea that I will more than likely need to use Glyphosate several times over to kill them off. I will need to survey the area my next time out to get a real idea of what I'm working with.
it might be interesting to know what kind of ferns these are... GIS for Minnesota ferns returns various species. do you know what kind of ferns they are? that being said, deer like to eat some fern and apparently not others. Plants Deer Will Not Eat http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&uact=8&sqi=2&ved=0CFQQFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gardening.cornell.edu%2Ffactsheets%2Fdeerdef%2Fbridgen_list.pdf&ei=UVKkU-j_GoOlqAaA4oDQCQ&usg=AFQjCNEKgkErBVJZBs8BRd_o83iG5E59ew&sig2=7VgBs1hB74OEjOX8L5-Saw my first thought was why in the world would you want to get rid of an important native 'food plot', but it's possible they don't eat this species much. you also say it makes a great bedding area... why would you want to alter that too? obviously you have other plans for this particular area... but why do you really want to get rid of the ferns, other than 'they are a pain in the arse?'
To let other native species of trees grow... Undergrowth is very important, but with 3-4 foot high ferns covering every inch of the forest floor, that will not happen. I will take some pictures this Saturday to get a better idea of the specific species and what I'm working with.
fair enough... you going to plant some trees or just let it happen naturally? the areal looks like woods, but it may be pretty open woods, right?
