bushhogging kudzu

[MikeA57]

Oh, and as far as chemicals, I guess I could do that but it might be best just to wait till it dies off, then go in and tear it out. Chemicals are easy but mean $$$. I'm thinking diesel for the bobcat and tractor would be cheaper.

 

[clemsonfor]

deer eat and bed in kudzu, there just a suped up goat!

 

[clemsonfor]

Oh, and as far as chemicals, I guess I could do that but it might be best just to wait till it dies off, then go in and tear it out. Chemicals are easy but mean $$$. I'm thinking diesel for the bobcat and tractor would be cheaper.

UMMMM have you priced deisel lately? And have you seen kudzu grow? If you tear it all down it will be back just as thick the next year!

Deisel is almost if not $4/gallon most places. I have no idea how much the bobcat would burn but would think an easy 10 gallons doing your work maybe double?

Glyphosate in a generic form can be had for $35/2.5 gallons. Mixing it at the label rate of 2% solution that is 2 gallons per 100gallons of water to spray on the kudzu. Spot sprayed that is a LOT of chemical. And thats only $35 worth if you triple that you will have close to 350 gallons of solution to spray out for under $100. The lable for 41% glyphosate says to put 4qts per acre of chemical. This is concentrate not solution (i know confusing right!) So if you mixed at the rate i said of 2 gals per 100gals of water that means you use 50 gallons per acre of dilute/solution spray. So 300gallons will give you 6 acres using this equation. You can use more or les water per given area if u like but you need to spray untill wet. This is the reason Herbicide is so complicated its not the amount of chemical per amout of water but the amout of ACTIVE ingredient per given AREA that its applied. It really dont matter if you used 100 gallons of water in an area or 50 gallons of water per area. If you cover the entire area you sprayed and both mixes had 1 gallon of chemical diluted in that mix you still sprayed 1 gallon of active chemical in that area. YOU do NEED more water the more dense the vegitaion or the height of it. IE low grass will take less water to get the same chemical in the same size area as waist high grass, because the tall grass has more surface area to coat.

Anyway my point is what will $100 buy you in deisel fuel?? 25 gallons!! and it will all grow back once it warms up!! At least the chemical will kill say 75% or more in one application, after about 3x on the persistand ones its gone!

You will need a slide in tank sprayer though and those are high unless you can rent one.

 

[HCJtractor]

Deer love to eat it and bed in it. I have killed two book deer in a kudzu patch. My strangest stand is in a patch of kudzu. Since it was a hill top and no trees overlooking it, I placed a telephone pole on the top of the knoll, and leaned a ladder stand on it. The kudzu grows up the stand like a trellis and camouflages it perfectly. Every fall I have to bush hog a path to my pole and cut my way up the ladder. But I am invisible there and I see lots of deer munching on the zu. People laugh at my pole stand until they hunt from it. It does look rather weird after the frost kills the kudzu as it stands out like a sore thumb. The day I dug the hole for the pole, I drove my tractor up the hill through 4' high kudzu. As my buddy and I reached the top and parked, making all sorts of noise, a 10 pointer stood up 40 yards away and looked at us.

 

[MikeA57]

clemsonfor: How long does the chemical kill yhe Kudzu for? The chemical I use along my fence lasts about 3-4 months. Then I gotta spray again.

 

[smstonypoint]

If the OP decides to use herbicides, here are two items that may be useful.

Apparently, Tordon has been the traditional herbicide of choice for kudzu control: Kudzu Eradication Guidelines

Dupont claims that its Escort XP is more effective than Tordon: http://www.rrsi.com/docs/dupont_kudzu.pdf

Mercifully, I don't have any kudzu on my property and so I don't have any personal experience with either herbicide.

I am a free trade advocate, but kudzu and Chinese/Japanese privet are two imports we could have done without.

Steve

 

[dusty3030]

What state?

 

[Taylortractornut]

Id be carefull and just bush hog hog it. I do spot of hay for a friend of mines dairy goatse brush hog the old thick growth and let it sprout new tender ones and hay them. The new sprouts A few years ago on a thick spot I went in with the skid steer and my tractor and box blade. We piled the clumps in huge windrows and let it rot and re grow. He actueally made wind breaks from it all. Two years later we lit the growths on them and the old that we had piled. THere was a nice huge streak of topsoil to plant in under that. Alot of time we would just mow it with the tractor in reverse going slowly to avoid dips and surprises.

 

[clemsonfor]

clemsonfor: How long does the chemical kill yhe Kudzu for? The chemical I use along my fence lasts about 3-4 months. Then I gotta spray again.

The problem with the guy who says to dig it out with a boxblade and bobcat is that that wont work. For fairly young less established patches it will, but kudzu is deep rooted. It has rizomes (underground root structure, like a potato kind of), these can go down as far as 30feet on old plants.


Ok to ansewer your question. If you KILL it it will be forever. I agree there are better things than Glyphosate, we use transline, but tordone as well when i have it sprayed in a spot that has it bad i look after. The problem with any chemical u use it that nothing will be 100%. There will always be leaves that dont get chemical as there under others when you spray. The stuffs so hearty if u miss a few leaves it seems like that vine can still persist. Also it may just weaken the plants with large underground root structures (see above comment). But the next year these weaker plants come back they will either be new shoots or if you fail to cut the draping large vines they will be new runners off them. But the subsequent treatments are easy to control, you can handle them with a backpack sprayer in an hour or so walking an area meticuosly. It will take about 4 years of 1x a year treatments to just about eradicate an area. There was this one patch that was a few acres in size, some horribly infested some just in canopys. I had it sprayed about 3x and 99% of it killed. Each year i would ride and walk around and see less than 10 new shoots or tiny patches to respray. Its just a battle keep at it and you will win. But that first year you get 90% of it id say if you apply it at a good time. Meaning a few days following a rain, and in the day and also allow it a few days or 1 day till the next rain.

But like i said once a plant is killed its gone forever, its the ones you weaken and the ones you miss that will repopulate an area.


ALSO if you use your TRACTOR, you need to sanitize it after use in the kudzu. This means before you leave this tract you need to go over to a stump or the edge of your trailer, back your bushhog over and onto the side of it, lower it onto it to support it, then get under the bushhog and manually remove any portion of vines left on it. The small nodes on the vines can be dropped elsewhere and resprout if they get soil contact and moisture. This is why you see it all over roadsides as county road crew spread the stuff this way. The other thing you can do is if you dont feel like crawling under and pulling it, just leave it on the trailer or on the concrete for days in the sun till it dries out and definitly dies till you use that tractor on your place!!


Also for your fence. If your just talking weeds ond not kudzu, you need something that is soil active. Glyphosate does nothing once contacting soil. You need something with imazyapyr (trade name arsenol, i got some stuff at TSC with a weak formulation called barrier)in it, tordon, or velpar or something that says soil activity on the label.