Herbicide use on hardwood planting

[dewwood]

I have 50 acres of two and three year old plantings of mixed hardwoods in the extreme northeast corner of Indiana.  I am planning on spraying for weeds, especially Canadian thistle this spring.  My current plans are to use a  Princep and Roundup mix about the first week of May or whenever the first flush of weed growth occurs.  I may also spray again later in the summer with the same mix to get sustained season long control.  I have a sprayer with one nozzle which will direct the spray along the sides of the row of trees overlapping slightly in the middle to give a strip about 30" inches wide, a little will hit the base of the tree seedlings.  I did hand spray with Roundup last summer and it worked well but it is far too slow doing it by hand, it took all summer.

Has anyone had any experience spraying seedlings and if so do you have any suggestions or recommendations?

Any thoughts will be appreciated.

Thanks
Dewey

[DanG]

Dewey, I ain't got a clue.  Just wanted to say HI, and welcome. Stick around, and some our exspurts will give you a dandy answer to your question, and you can look over the rest of the stuff, too. Then you'll be hooked.

[Ron Scott]

Contact a local nursery in your area for their methods for efficient and effective applications on your type hardwoods species and acres to cover. Also contact the local Extension Service for advice and seek out a Certified pesticide applicator to do the work for you if you don't have equipment for more rapid coverage of your area.

A 4x4 wheeler (ORV) with tanker and sparayer often works well. Just be sure to use an  EPA approved chemical in correct amount of application for what you want to kill.  

[Texas Ranger]

Ya gotta control your drift and oversprey, is it possible to use a drag instead of a sprey?

[swampwhiteoak]

You can use Oust and spray over the tops before the buds break dormancy.  Oust works as both a pre and postemergent.  

Surflan, Pendulum, and Goal are others that are commonly used.  The rates and combinations depend somewhat on what you are trying to control.

Stinger and Transline are both commonly used as thistle control agents.  You can overspray hardwoods if memory serves.

General Recommendations - Use the commercial grade of Roundup w/surfactant.  Don't spray the leaves (watch for drift).  Use a CFV valve on your tank if it is a handpump model.  And be sure and wash your hands after all mixing.

For whatever reason, if you are going to use Princep you have to use Princep Liquid, not Princep 4L (according to the label).  

Weed control is usually most important in late spring/early summer since that is when the tree is doing most of its growth.  

[dewwood]

Swampwhiteoak,
Thanks for the info, I have used Oust in the past by a custom applicator and felt it was causing too much damage to the trees in the lighter soils.  Not familiar with Stinger or Transline but will check them out, Canadian thistles are a major problem in our planting.  I am using a tractor and sprayer with a roller pump, one nozzle mounted near the front tractor tire to maintain constant nozzle height.  We are using 2qt Princep and 1 qt Roundup per acre with a surfactant and a neutralizing agent.

I appreciate the help, I will check out the other chemicals you mentioned.

If you get up this way stop and have a gander at our project.  I am two miles into Indiana from the Ohio line on US 20 and one half mile north.

Good talking to you.
Dewey

[swampwhiteoak]

I appreciate the offer, Dew.  The governor tells me I can't venture outta Ohio without super special permission on state time other wise I'd drive by and take a look.  If I'm going to be in the area on my own time I'll drop you a line and stop by.  What county are you in?  Are you across from Williams Co. or Defiance?

I added a few forum directory links on herbicide info, one or two have a search function and you can read any label.  Comes in handy since most of the herbicide people in these parts don't know much if it isn't for a grain crop.

[dewwood]

Swampwhiteoak,

Thanks for the links, there is a lot of information on them.  I have not had a chance to look up everything I want to yet but I'm sure it will be very helpful.  You are right about the chemical & fert people,  they don't have much info outside of the grain crops.

If you get up this way I'm in Steuben County, just two miles from the Ohio line and about five or six from the Michigan line.  We are just 1/2 mile north of US 20 on Old Rd One.

Thanks again for the information.

Dewey

[swampwhiteoak]

I missed this before
Posted by the Don of Texas

Ya gotta control your drift and oversprey

I thought all you southerners did was aerial arsenal the whole thing and try to keep it outta the creeks.

[Tom]

You pretty much got it, Swamp of the Quercus.  Our conifer forests can stand it and it takes a plane to reach all the corners before the trees reach maturity.  These things grow so fast down here that they keep us on the run.  Arsenal, the bane of the hardwoods, spread across the midwest and northeast would leave nothing but high-rises if you weren't real careful.

[dewwood]

Update:
Just a note to say the spraying with Roundup and Princep went quite well.  We achieved excellent control for the first six weeks and are now spot spraying by hand.  I have still not decided for sure if I will administer a second dose sometime in July or not, it will depend on how it looks out there at that time.  We did have a serious freeze in May which was very hard on some  of the smaller trees which were just starting to leaf out.  Overall I am happy with the way things look right now.
Dewey

[Texas Ranger]

Hey, SwampRabbit, we Texicans do a lot of aerial work, unfortunetly, they wont let us spray Louisiana!  Anyway, we also do a fair amount of ground application from the back of a modified log hog with sprayers attached, works well.  And we can customize the chemical mix and application pretty well.  Also use ATV's in some circumstances.