What can I spray in the woods to control unwanted growth but not harm trees?

[Al Kramer]

Goats! They are the best thing for this sort of situation. Mowing is probably not doable with all the other stuff like stumps, branches, etc. You can rent or buy them. if you buy, try to get Kikos. they are very parasite resistant. if you have a lot if brush you don’t need to feed them other than to tame them up and to lead them around. of course you need a good fence, but who doesn’t need a good fence? You can use temporary electric fence to keep them in certain areas and then just move them around if you don’t have a permanent fence. Spraying has all kinds of unintended consequences starting with killing plants you didn’t want to kill, and beneficial bugs that are living in the leaf litter. A lot of bees, butterfly caterpillars and beneficial insects live on the ground and their numbers, keep dropping at scary rates so please try to hold off on the spraying and leave places for these guys to thrive. goats are amazing and fun and do the job.

 

[Al Kramer]

Have you contacted your state forestry department to see about a prescribed burn?

That may or may not be a option with burn bans and it depends in the type of forest. under pines will burn like mad but oak hammocks won’t. but it’s worth asking.

 

[Al Kramer]

Hunting is my ultimate use. But I am not wanting to spray and kill off everything around the woods. I have a lot of trails going all over the woods and just want to keep the trail sides knocked back enough to navigate without being bombarded with everything. The misses likes to walk the trails and doesn't want all of that junk on her. Thanks for the info, I will look into that!

We use our property for hunting too and mowing/bush hogging trails worked great in the thick areas and the perimeter and as i just mentioned, goats are also fantastic. i walk my property all the time on the trails and the deer use them, too!

 

[Joe Batt]

I use glysophate. Even if sprayed on most tree trunks it won't damage them. Its when you spray the green/foliage it systemically draws back into the tree and down to the roots. Even then may not kill it first few times.

I spray wild blackberries every year (to keep them from cross pollinating with my upick cash crop) and they always come back with vigor.

Thought about the goat idea, but they are so dang aggravating to keep in a fenced area.

I had goats and Katahdin sheep. Now I only have the sheep. They are so much easier to manage than goats and eat about the same thing. They seek out poison ivy, multi-floral rose and mulberry on my property. I keep them in with two strands of electric fence. If they get out, I yell at them and they run back to where they feel safe (in the fence). The one goat that I kept will push over 10' mulberry trees and the sheep will run over to eat all of the leaves off. Once your woods is cleaned up, just take them to the sale barn and sell them for more than you bought them for (try to do that with a tractor!). I would start with about 4/acre and plan on moving them once a week. That means you need enough fence for 2 pens.

Even if you are using loppers and a saw, the sheep can clean up all of the little stuff and keep the trees from regrowing.

 

[kmesr9]

I would avoid the glyphosate at all costs. Proven to cause cancer and there are still civil law suits about that. If your just bush whacking the trails I’d stick to that and let nature do the rest. I have 180ft of river front beyond my lower pasture and the trail is about 100ft and gets o regrown with blackberry vines, salmon berries, grass, horse tails and anything else that comes in with the high waters of winter, so every spring I go down there with a machete, a weedeater with blades and a self propelled mower and clear and mow the path. Then one more time mid summer and it stays clear until the following spring.

 

[kmesr9]

Another thing that I did that surprised me was getting goats. I had blackberries all over the place and spraying them didn't have any success. The worse area was next to my small pond. I could only mow so close to the edge, and the blackberries just got bigger every year. The areas I mowed, the blackberries just spread wider and chocked out the grass.

The goats ate the blackberries to the point that there is no sign of them ever existing. I knew that they ate a lot of things, but those blackberries where full of thorns and the goats ate them like candy!!!!!

We had 2acres of blackberries and got 3 goats. They decimated the blackberries in 1 summer never to return. (The goats are still there munching them back lol!)

 

[Dr_Zinj]

Another thing that I did that surprised me was getting goats. I had blackberries all over the place and spraying them didn't have any success. The worse area was next to my small pond. I could only mow so close to the edge, and the blackberries just got bigger every year. The areas I mowed, the blackberries just spread wider and chocked out the grass.

The goats ate the blackberries to the point that there is no sign of them ever existing. I knew that they ate a lot of things, but those blackberries where full of thorns and the goats ate them like candy!!!!!

Goats do a good job on poison ivy too.

 

[Fishinspot1]

I have a Lane Shark that goes on the front of my tractor. It is amazing. Wife and I use to walk all the roads and trails and manually cut back the encroaching sides and it about killed us. I bit the bullet and bought the Lane shark and it is a game changer. Basically a bush Hog for the front but has 11 positions including vertically, high and low and also adjusts up top to get over hanging things. Perfect for roads and trails. Probably gave me back 5-10 yrs. Of my life!!!!

 

[EddieWalker]

What did the Lane Shark cost? How big is your tractor?

 

[Mudfarmer]

I see in the previous responses the concern about damaging trees. The problem is that the discussion depends on what kind of trees you have and what you mean by brambles. Here in the Pacific NW we are predominantly concerned with growing conifers, particularly Douglas fir and western red cedar. Our brambles are Himalayan (sometimes called Armenian) blackberries predominantly. the herbicide of choice is 2-4d+triclopyr (CrossBow). Glyphosate won't kill blackberries - just beats them back a bit. Crossbow won't kill either if applied at the wrong time of year, and in fact will kill the trees at the wrong time of year. So, the practice here is to spray in the late summer early fall just before the rains set in. Seedling evergreens are not particularly hurt that time of year after bud closure and the blackberries are most susceptible as they are drawing the foliar sprayed herbicides into the roots along with the nutrients they are storing up for the following spring.

I don't know anything about spraying around deciduous trees though.

And we use backpack sprayers - not my favorite thing to do.