Question about digging a trench to bury brush and poison oak.

[ultrarunner]

I've got about 2 acres of hillside with scatted brush and LOTS of dead poison oak... some would call it a forest!

Dealing with poison oak is risky no matter how careful I am if it means physically removing it... so hauling it off or filling a dumpster isn't a good option.

A few years ago I know a guy that hired 6 day laborers, 2 30yd dumpsters and a chipper. They did a phenomenal job clearing out his land and all of them ended up in the Hospital, two spent several days in intensive care... note, never spend a summer day running poison oak through a chipper.

What about using my Dozer to to dig out one big or several trenches and then pushing all the brush and dead poison oak into it and then covering with dirt?

The dead poison oak "Bushes" stand 4 to 5 feet on average and after several years of repeated spraying are now dead.

Maybe this is a question for Eddie?

Any problems with getting rid of brush this way? How deep does it need to be buried?

Eventually, I would like to keep a horse or two in this area and can't because of my poison oak "Groves".

 

[Skyco]

Curious here- why does the poison oak stop you from keeping horses there? Is it just in the way?
I hear horses love to eat poison oak and are immune to it. I read where only humans and apes are susceptable to it.

 

[Reg]

Somewhere I have read that poison oak is eaten by ???
I *_THINK_* it was goats....
but maybe it was alpacas ?

It is worth searching for.
I am reasonably sure that I read this on a horse forum, so it would have been an animal kept by horse owners - goats, alpacas, etc.

 

[Reg]

Here Ya go;

How to Get Rid of Poison Oak and Poison Ivy | eHow.com

So if you are planning to keep horses there eventually, maybe do the fencing first, get a couple of goats, plow the roots out after a couple of years, then put the horses in.
By that time you will have bonded with the goats and they will have to stay, but they are fine companions to horses anyway (-:

 

[Reg]

Curious here- why does the poison oak stop you from keeping horses there? Is it just in the way?
I hear horses love to eat poison oak and are immune to it. I read where only humans and apes are susceptable to it.

Ya but, PEOPLE do tend to TOUCH horses.
Female people especially - and male people often touch female people.
and<CENSORED>

 

[J_J]

I've got about 2 acres of hillside with scatted brush and LOTS of dead poison oak... some would call it a forest!

Dealing with poison oak is risky no matter how careful I am if it means physically removing it... so hauling it off or filling a dumpster isn't a good option.

A few years ago I know a guy that hired 6 day laborers, 2 30yd dumpsters and a chipper. They did a phenomenal job clearing out his land and all of them ended up in the Hospital, two spent several days in intensive care... note, never spend a summer day running poison oak through a chipper.

What about using my Dozer to to dig out one big or several trenches and then pushing all the brush and dead poison oak into it and then covering with dirt?

The dead poison oak "Bushes" stand 4 to 5 feet on average and after several years of repeated spraying are now dead.

Maybe this is a question for Eddie?

Any problems with getting rid of brush this way? How deep does it need to be buried?

Eventually, I would like to keep a horse or two in this area and can't because of my poison oak "Groves".

If the plant is totally dead, not just surface kill, then you can just plow it under. The best way to kill poison oak is using something like Roundup that will do a total kill roots and all. Just mix it correctly and add something to the Roundup to make it stick to the plant better. Keep in mind that it will also kill anything else in the area. Otherwise, don't let it drift.

 

[MarkV]

I don’t see any reason you cannot put the dead stuff in a ditch and bury it. The ditch will settle some after it is backfilled and the contents decay. Use the dozer and add more dirt. Seems like a good solution if you can get the dead poison oak to the ditch without handling it.

MarkV

 

[kthompson]

Glad to see no recommendation to burn it as the oil will or can go up in the smoke and into lungs. As my wife's grandmother learned. Depending on time, you may be able to hire a mulcher to run over it and let it just rot or possibly even reduce it some with rought cut mower. Then remembe the oil transfer factor. Sure would seem safe to bury it. kt

 

[EddieWalker]

Since you can't burn it, pushing it into a pit is about as good a way to get rid of it as any other, and allot better then most ways. Being very suseptable to poison oak and poison ivey, I'm always fearful of getting any of it on me. I've never had any issues when messing with it on my dozer or backhoe, but did get some on my this past spring while bush hogging a field. The real suprise was that it was even in that field since poison ivey likes the shade and this was all out in the open.

With the smaller plant material, you shouldn't have much, if any, issues with the dirt settling from it decomposing. That's pretty much just with the larger things like stumps. If you can get it deep enough and sealed up, it wont decompose anyway. In a university experiment at a land fill in Southern California, they dig out newspapers from the 70's that you could still read. If it's sealed off, it will stay there for a very long time, if not forever.

My main concern would be erosion. It's getting to be the rainy season for you and two acres can create allot of mud. If you don't get the hole compacted, then it will settle on you when it rains and cause allot of issue from that. This is what most people blame for decomposing material, but in reality, it's just the water finding open areas in the ground and the rain water washing the soil into those open cavities. The bigger the material, the more likely this is to happen.

Eddie

 

[dirtworksequip]

Just a little poison oak factoid.


1 to 5 years is normal for urushiol oil to stay active on any surface including dead plants.

Sincerely, dirt