Anyone ever had to clear thorny Locust trees?

[Bobrown14]

Maybe the Redheaded stepchild.... Glad I don't have to deal with that!!! Honey Locust is bad enough... I use Roundup or Garlon 4 Ultra to kill what pops up after I mow it down.

You dont need herbicides to deal with the pop ups. Just mow them they wont come back. We have many honey and black locusts.

They reproduce by root suckers and what you call pop ups. All that is required is mowing.

The interesting thing is the suckers aka pop ups are thorny but the thorns go away as the tree gets bigger. I suppose that keeps the critters from eating the new shoots.

 

[nch77]

I push them over with the D7, burn the piles.

 

[Mcdust]

Nasty trees. If I had those things it would be WAR. Maybe cut and burn and get the neighbor's excavator to rip out whats left?

IF Tordon RTU is still available it will kill them if you can get close enough to inject it. I have a friend who spent time in India with the Peace corps and had the same problem with giant thorns in the tractor tires.

 

[billknecht]

Yep. Cut and then spray anyregrowth once a month all summer. Thorns can take 5 years to degrade naturally, less if you get a lot of rain.

Beware getting shanked by a thorn. I did, and it took a month to heal, acting as if it were infected. Cover wound with a bandaid with betadine on it, and betadine + ChiggerEx if it itches.

 

[IDLVR]

I had to clear about 200 of them off of about 6 acres of expired CRP land. I used my track loader with a tree puller and kubota 2920 backhoe. They spread by lateral shoots, so you have to remove the shoots and root system or they keep growing back. You can cut around the trunk with your chainsaw and apply Toradon (spelling?) but then you have poison in your soil. After removing all of them, I made a large pile and let them sit for 2 years before they would burn. Offered several people the smaller diameter trees for fence posts or firewood, but too much work to clear the thorns. I fill all my air tires (utv, tractors, mowers) with Gempler’s Ultraseal - works the best for me to prevent flats and preserve tires. It will seal a 1/2” hole. Did finally get a flat on my UTV once. When I took off tire, there were >50 thorns in the tire.

 

[Lena]

Water locust thorny trees! I am concerned about getting flats on the Mahinda 5010 tractor while clipping the pasture. Or my truck while riding through! Now and far into the future, but not sure how much the latter is a concern. It's because of what we always called Water Locust trees, incredibly thorny monsters. These things have thousands of thorns several inches long that are like nails, like super big hypodermic needles. If you've never seen one, check the image at the bottom. Growing up on the farm, we had to bushhog the pastures and we'd get flats from these thorns. So, what to do. How do you get rid of these? I could hire a forestry mulcher that has tracks and he could certainly do it. But how long would you need to not drive in that spot!

A couple of years ago in this same pasture, we cut some in the open pasture with a chainsaw and polesaw and carefully stacked every single limb and made brush piles. I am now going to burn those and hope every thorn burns! But I now need to clear a heavily infested spot, dozens of trees to reclaim that part of the pasture. What is the best method is the question. And also how long these thorns can remain a pest. Like, many years before they rot?

These trees are beautiful trees otherwise and make a great conversation topic; I would like to save a couple of the more picturesque ones but I worry about them shedding a limb here and there and... flats. The trees also makes great firewood but dealing with the massive thorn clusters, yikes. I suppose that these trees are cousins of the honey locust tree. I wish they were just black locust or the thornless honey locust variety.

I retired from highways. They would foam their front tires. The problem is the only way to remove/ replace the tire is to cut the tire and foam. A really nasty job.

 

[1 Old Man]

Damn, you must have better luck than I with the grubber!
Bent it badly with the very first tree.
Back it went!

Was it a "knock off" grubber or the real thing? I posted a pic of both sizes of the real thing. If you were able to bend either you must have driven over it. I've used them to pull small trees and trees up to about 1 1/2" or a bit over. I placed a bar between my rear lift arms, hook a chain to bar and loop on grubber, set jaws on grubber as deep and low to ground as i could, then lift. I hooked into a couple of trees that made the front wheels come off the ground. Not pleasant.
These days I use the same technique that Robert Walker uses. Cut and spray stumps. Big trees, I use Basal spray. Little trees that pop us in pastures I use loping shears and immediately spray the stubs.
Good luck with whatever technique you use. (did I mention I HATE Honey Locust? )

 

[1 Old Man]

Thinking about this made me remember, a guy on Facebook Marketplace was selling honey locust trees. I would be more than willing to give them away. You have to dig yourself

The guy on Facebook needs his butt kicked.

 

[1 Old Man]

You dont need herbicides to deal with the pop ups. Just mow them they wont come back. We have many honey and black locusts.

They reproduce by root suckers and what you call pop ups. All that is required is mowing.

The interesting thing is the suckers aka pop ups are thorny but the thorns go away as the tree gets bigger. I suppose that keeps the critters from eating the new shoots.

Maybe we have a different variety. You mow the ones here and you spread thorns. The thorns
here don't go away as the tree gets bigger.....the thorns get bigger as the tree gets bigger.

 

[Vmax540]

And I thought the Multiflora Rose and invasive Cherry Birch were difficult...