Now, I am from a southern aspect, but in the mountains of WNC we have a fair share of invasives. For work, I am a conservationist with a Soil and Water Conservation District. My primary customer is land owners and my primary partners are Extension and the NRCS. Here is what we have found for dealing with invasives such as Kudzu and Oriental Bitter Sweet: the recommendations of getting in there with a chainsaw and Garlon is by far the best and most effective way to get it in check for being eradicated. But our topography and average age of the producers/landowners here makes it difficult so we have found using goats and sheep as an effective tool. Portable electric fence, set them up on an area and let em eat. Just make sure they have water, and if predation is big in your area, maybe a Great Pyrenees or check up on them pretty close. That weed of Satan known as Kudzu doesn't grow back as well after goats or sheep graze over it due to the hooves of the animals. They are sharper and the area they hit are more concentrated than cattle. The roots and stems are cut up and have to re establish after being grazed. The catch is, it can be expensive and it can be a pain rotating the sheep. Contact your local USDA Service Center or Extension office and see what they have to say about it. Maybe feed a couple boys and give them garlon and chainsaws and get em to work.... Good luck man! Don't Hate While I Conservate – Ambitions of a Flunky. Just a hunter and angler attempting to answer the call of our Conservation Heritage in the 21st Century
When I cleared my pasture I used a goat, a nasty smelly big horned pygmy goat. I had him cabled to a tractor tire. He would eat the leaves off the hazelnut and poison ivy and I would move him to the next area by flipping the tire a few times, when the leaves popped back out on the eaten brush I would move him back to rebrowse it, seemed like if the leaves were eaten off twice the brush would not come back. The tractor tire was nice because you could put the water bucket on the inside so the goat could not spill it.
Buck thorn sucks also. Even worse when it get some size to it. Cut it a paint the stumps with herbicide seems to work...but it labors intensive like everything else.
It depends on how thick it is and how hard you work at it. But I would say you could cover several acres. Once you start making some headway you can go faster. I doubt you will kill everything the first time around. There is always some that gets missed. But the thing to remember is that it will get substantially better and that it becomes much more manageable. Think of this as more of a long term plan than an immediate fix. I think you can achieve some noticeable results working a day here and there.
Dang Scott, sounds like a nightmare. I can't imagine having to battle that crap by hand on 150 acres, my back hurts just thinking about it!
You need to call an expert or pay some people to help cut and paint before this ruins your habitat indefinitely I'm guessing it's close right now I'd take the year off from hunting that area and take care of that issue if you want your farm to be good come next year
Yes it is a disaster Fred. The fact that parts of it had to be logged to help buy out an uncle just opened up the canopy and promoted more growth even. There are some things in works for the future of this land. If it goes through I suppose I'll begin trying to start chipping away at it. Sent from my LGLS992 using Tapatalk
