Help with maintaining an arena for my daughters horse barrell racing

[Redlands Okie]

Pramitol | Pramitol 25e Weed Killer Herbicide | Bare Ground Herbicide

Pramitol seems to fit the needs in the OP’s original post. Any one have other suggestions ?

 

[skipperbrown]

Re: Killing and preventing grass/weeds for an arena?

How about hitting it with a drag harrow or similar once a week or so to disrupt the new growth and do so until the seeds in the bed have all died? Every time you disrupt the soil, you expose a new set of dormant seeds that germinate and until these are all gone, you are going to get new growth.

 

[drssg]

That looks like a nice drag! What did it set ya back?

I paid $4800 for it, including tax and delivery. I believe I bought the 8' model.

I called the number on their web site, and I found their sales staff to be quite helpful. They might have some good feedback, based on your conditions.

 

[bunyip]

We use a 4' version of this, different set up and can be reversed, takes me about an hour to get around the arena properly (45 x 45 I wouldn't like to do by hand).
Arena is road base topped with packind sand topped with final smooth sand, took about a year to build allowing the first two layers to compact.
PASTURE HARROWS 6 1/2FT / 2METRE - Hayes Products - Tractor Attachments and Implements

 

[r porter]

the pramitol works great but be cautious. it runs if a rain is heavy and if it is with in the drip line of a tree the tree will die.

disc it often, the more you disc the more seeds will die. also the horse will really appreciate the softer soil.

take some advice from a really old can chaser- disc it or get the arena drag and use it

 

[polkwrangler]

im in northern Lakeland,with all this rain everything sprouts back after couple of weeks of spraying.maybe find something with a long lasting residue poison. years ago I went to Helena chemical company and bought a drum of round up knockoff its on the outskirts of plant city ,try give them a call they should have something for you

 

[DieselBound]

Re: Killing and preventing grass/weeds for an arena?

^^^ This. And, it's FAR better than putting poison into your ground (which I will NOT do as I have animals, and a conscience).

Chickens do a great job in turning anything green [back] to brown.

 

[big bubba]

Re: Killing and preventing grass/weeds for an arena?

^^^ This. And, it's FAR better than putting poison into your ground (which I will NOT do as I have animals, and a conscience).

Chickens do a great job in turning anything green [back] to brown.

good for you, totally agree.

 

[Overtaxed]

Re: Killing and preventing grass/weeds for an arena?

Couple of options. If you want to kill the ground, something like Mojave 70EG will do the trick for quite some time. It's not cheap, but it works really well, stuff you spray with this will stay dead a long time. I often mix it with Roundup for a fast/forever kill. Use it on my driveway, sidewalks, etc where I want "dead forever" because that's what this stuff does.

For a slightly less devastating kill, I use Roundup mixed with Surflan AS. Good stuff, also not cheap, but it stops seeds from germinating. That's more a multi-use product for me, mixed with Roundup, it's a bareground chemical, used on it's own, you can spray it over things you want to keep but it'll keep new stuff from sprouting.

 

[JamesHW]

I wonder if there could be any concern that using a persistent herbicide like Pramitol, that remains in the soil for up to a year, could conceivably expose the riders to microscopic amounts of the herbicide via dust inhalation. I know the stuff is approved for recreational areas (after it dries), but I could see a horse kicking up a lot of dust.

I realize the odds of major damage is probably small, I still don’t think the science on environmental exposure to small amounts of chemicals over time and any ill effects on us is complete. If it was my daughter I’d be reticent to chance it.