Help! How to clear a black berry thicket covered in thorny vines?

[DaveVine]

Hi gang, this is a couple of things I do to get rid of Blackberries. First and favorite is use a Backhoe and pull and scrape the roots, second is backing in with a Box Scrapper with rippers, get as much root up as possible, third and last, hit it with a brush hog. I clean the area down to bare dirt, then leave it alone, let the new starts get up between 8 - 12", then spray. Plants suck the spray into their roots. But remember seeds and roots can lay dormant for 7 years so you have to stay after them. Spraying big vines is only wasting spray, poison never gets to the roots, get them when they are fresh and supple and the hotter the day the better dead root systems and less spray used. Hope this works for you

 

[DaveVine]

Now the next question how do you get rid of Gorse? $1,000,000 Reward in America, and over $2,500,000 in Scotland and Ireland. I also understand New Zealand is offering even bigger rewards.

That should get a few of you thinking, my grandfather, said farmers are the greatest inventor in the world

 

[cqaigy2]

We used goats to get rid of our blackberrys when we first moved on to our place; years ago. They just kept munching down on the leaves and sprouts till the plants died. Now that the goats are gone, the brush hog chews them up pretty good. It doesn't take long being chopped down to the ground till the roots are exhausted. The birds are very good at reseeding though so we still have blackberrys but only where we want them, unless it's where we don't.:laughing:

 

[TomSeller]

Mouthful of berries. One of many today off to the burn pile.