Hay Making on a Different Scale

[MichiganIron]

Horse nettle is a miserable SOB

In some States / Counties, you aren't even allowed to eradicate it yourself. The county takes over, burns the field and sends you a bill. Soybeans are the major concern, since horsenettle can be harvested with the soybeans.

 

[LHF2019]

It is tough to completely eradicate. Control is more like it. We have some in all our fields. There is no getting away from it. It is a native species so meant to survive. Indians used the seeds for tea/medicine. I haven't tried it yet but is tempting just to do it. Seeds survive in the soil so all your doing is turning up new seeds with tillage. Best control is late fall before it frosts with herbicides so it gets drawn into the roots. Spraying during summer does nothing but reduce the tops. Other than that it is maintain a good stand and choke it out. Lime/fertilize and good stand of grass, however on dry years like we are having here there's nothing you can do. The grass is stunted and horse nettle has a good taproot. Guess which one grows.

 

[MichiganIron]

It is tough to completely eradicate. Control is more like it. We have some in all our fields. There is no getting away from it. It is a native species so meant to survive. Indians used the seeds for tea/medicine. I haven't tried it yet but is tempting just to do it. Seeds survive in the soil so all your doing is turning up new seeds with tillage. Best control is late fall before it frosts with herbicides so it gets drawn into the roots. Spraying during summer does nothing but reduce the tops. Other than that it is maintain a good stand and choke it out. Lime/fertilize and good stand of grass, however on dry years like we are having here there's nothing you can do. The grass is stunted and horse nettle has a good taproot. Guess which one grows.

Toxic to horses and most animals. We have a good local farm service that is used to dealing with this stuff. We will disc this fall after this burn, and then spray again next spring. Discing in the fall helps bring the dormant seeds up, so the spring application has a second chance to catch new growth. Will be tricky, since horsenettle is a late bloomer. Getting seed in the ground as early as possible next spring, hopefully.

 

[LHF2019]

Discing in the fall helps bring the dormant seeds up, so the spring application has a second chance to catch new growth. Will be tricky, since horsenettle is a late bloomer. Getting seed in the ground as early as possible next spring, hopefully.

This statement is false in my part of the world. Maybe different there but........

Burndown now and disc you might see new growth and spraying again in the fall might be effective.

However, taking you statement "Discing in the fall helps bring the dormant seeds up, so the spring application has a second chance to catch new growth". It doesn't work that way. Anything that might grow now will freeze and be done. Yes the roots are alive in the soil but there is no top foliage next spring. Horsenettle really doesn't show in fields until well into June. Way past the point of putting in a new seeding which for here the cutoff is really early May. Your area I'm sure differs on optimal dates. Even if the horsenettle was visible and you sprayed there would be plant back restrictions unless using Roundup only. There are pre emergent sprays that would reduce horsnettle before it starts growing but have no idea if any of them allows you to reseed immediately.

Not trying to start an argument but something doesn't seem right with what you want to do with regards to Horsenettle control.

As for the toxicity, there are a lot of plants that are toxic. Would take a lot of it to be toxic. On top of that unless you were force feeding it to them they are going to avoid it. Properly timed control spraying, managed mowing intervals, field maintenance, proper cutting heights are always going to be your best methods of control. You will not rid yourself of it. And mother nature will always persevere on your best intentions.

 

[MichiganIron]

This statement is false in my part of the world. Maybe different there but........

Burndown now and disc you might see new growth and spraying again in the fall might be effective.

However, taking you statement "Discing in the fall helps bring the dormant seeds up, so the spring application has a second chance to catch new growth". It doesn't work that way. Anything that might grow now will freeze and be done. Yes the roots are alive in the soil but there is no top foliage next spring. Horsenettle really doesn't show in fields until well into June. Way past the point of putting in a new seeding which for here the cutoff is really early May. Your area I'm sure differs on optimal dates. Even if the horsenettle was visible and you sprayed there would be plant back restrictions unless using Roundup only. There are pre emergent sprays that would reduce horsnettle before it starts growing but have no idea if any of them allows you to reseed immediately.

Not trying to start an argument but something doesn't seem right with what you want to do with regards to Horsenettle control.

As for the toxicity, there are a lot of plants that are toxic. Would take a lot of it to be toxic. On top of that unless you were force feeding it to them they are going to avoid it. Properly timed control spraying, managed mowing intervals, field maintenance, proper cutting heights are always going to be your best methods of control. You will not rid yourself of it. And mother nature will always persevere on your best intentions.

Fortunately, we have local Farm Service company doing this for us. They will tell us when to disc and when they are coming back. The tricky part is next spring. Those seeds that will be brought up discing will need to emerge before the second spray. It's just a matter of when we will be ready to get seed in the ground next year after they are done with their program. Don't expect this to be perfect, but they do this for a living, so we are doing what we are told.

The fields were ready for renovation anyhow, this was the last straw. One field was 12 years old, the other 10. The alfalfa was pretty thin, and there was enough other "stuff" in there that this was a good time to renovate. Spending $$ trying to treat would not have made sense in our case.

Always appreciate everyone's input.
Thanks

 

[Hay Dude]

I always seem to have just enough to have to make a “borderline call” on whether it’s feed hay or mushroom hay.
Annoys the crap out of me, but I’m kind of a perfectionist, so that’s not surprising.

 

[MichiganIron]

I always seem to have just enough to have to make a “borderline call” on whether it’s feed hay or mushroom hay.
Annoys the crap out of me, but I’m kind of a perfectionist, so that’s not surprising.

Our horse customers "act like" professional perfectionists. Tough crowd.

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

I feel like I see more horses around here that look like they have been forgotten about than I do fancy ones. There is a field a mile or two from my house that I can't remember ever having been cut, it's full of tall trash weeds, junk trees, and a couple of horses just hanging out in it. Been that way as long as I can remember.

 

[LHF2019]

Knocked down another field of first. This is our first time doing this field. Received it last fall and brush hogged it. Sprayed most of it this spring for weeds and it got so late we were just going to brush hog it but a friend needs some feed and is taking it. The layout of the field is nice and once we can put some money into it will make a very nice field minus the woodchuck holes. The spray made a big difference, where I ran out there was a lot more crap specifically goldenrod. And since we were talking horsenettle. There was a sea of it in sections. Some of the worst I have seen in a long time. I'm hoping to do a fall spray to knock the weeds back some more. Going to take a few years but this field has potential for hay for sale. In the meantime the plan is baleage.

Irritated I only took one photo.

And doing another run of 2nd. 25 acres down and hopefully get 300 small square bales. Pathetic. Also short on drivers and should be doing all 50 acres but so much raking and tedding with the baling is a lot of ground for wife and I. Keep hoping they take the rain out of Sunday and we would lay the rest down. But I should not be thinking like that either. We are DRY. May and June we could not work and fields were saturated. Over 11 inches of rain. July to today we have only received 2.66 in basically 2 separate rain events. Luckily I fertilized during both of them but still limited growth.

Poor picture taking. Before tedding I raked every 6 windrows toward the center. At least then it looked like I was doing something.

Usually you can watch it fill. Think it took a week to fill. At least shows there is still moisture deep. down.

 

[WM75Guy]

What you call horse nettle we call bull nettle. Same plant, in the same family as potatoes and tomatoes. USDA says eradication is darn near impossible. Best is to control it by frequent mowing. Spraying and manually pulling it are ineffective as it spreads by seed and propagation of roots.

We have a little in the horse paddocks. It grows on bare ground where the horses roll. They leave it alone as it is bitter and they have plenty of hay and grass. Each of the 3 horses has a paddock of 3/4 to 1 acre.