Killing Suckers Without Chemical

[ropensaddle]

Here August is rainy. It's pretty much "fall". Trees start loosing leaves in about a month.

Haha here its 100 in the shade and dry to the bone sometimes till oct

 

[BC WetCoast]

Long story short, 3 acres covered in about 400 trees, leaves are unbearable, decided to get rid of all sweet gum trees to lessen the leaves. To date have cut down 38 sweet gums starting about 6 weeks ago and treated some of the stumps with rock salt and ground some up. Both ground and salt stumps have suckers sprouting everywhere. Think I'm going to try glyphosate but there are trees I want to keep that are very near the stumps. The question is, will the glyphosate kill the surrounding trees if I only spray directly onto the sweet gum stumps? Will the glyphosate be sucked into the sweet gum roots and kill root system of the surrounding trees. Some keeper trees are less than a foot from the SG stumps.

Which leads to the question, why did you get a property with so many tree and leaves if you don't like picking up leaves????

 

[ATH]

Why would you salt the earth---literally????

Glyphosate, triclopyr, picloram, and 2, 4-d (and various mixes) all have labeled products for cut stump treatments Triclopyr and picloram tend to work the best. Triclopyr moves less in the soil. the key is to treat as soon as you make the cuts..don't wait.

 

[crotchclimber]

Long story short, 3 acres covered in about 400 trees, leaves are unbearable, decided to get rid of all sweet gum trees to lessen the leaves. To date have cut down 38 sweet gums starting about 6 weeks ago and treated some of the stumps with rock salt and ground some up. Both ground and salt stumps have suckers sprouting everywhere. Think I'm going to try glyphosate but there are trees I want to keep that are very near the stumps. The question is, will the glyphosate kill the surrounding trees if I only spray directly onto the sweet gum stumps? Will the glyphosate be sucked into the sweet gum roots and kill root system of the surrounding trees. Some keeper trees are less than a foot from the SG stumps.

It is possible you could kill the surrounding trees with glyphosate if the roots have grafted onto each other. Glyphosate is a systemic herbicide and goes into the roots. You could try a contact herbicide (i.e. pelargonic acid or diquat) that will kill the suckers but multiple applications will be necessary and it may never kill the stump if it's getting nutrients from grafted roots. Without leaves the stump will eventually be starved of energy and die. Your only permanent option is grinding the stumps out deeper. You have to remove all the stem tissue; roots should not sprout stems. You could try burying the stumps with a couple of feet of mulch, sometimes that works.

 

[southland1]

I bought the mega concentrate Round Up $129/gal.

2.5oz to a gal of water. I mixed it 3oz (didn't have a 5oz measuring cup).

Didn't even phase the tree sicker or anything else aside from a few small weeds. I sprayed about 10 gallons 8n all.

Not encouraging.

Sweet gum is prolific but I just keep it bush hogged it eventually gives up. I make sure to mow it in august when its hot and dry.

Some areas I can bush hog, other areas are too close to trees to bush Hog.

Which leads to the question, why did you get a property with so many tree and leaves if you don't like picking up leaves????

Location, aesthetics, shade, don't want to spend every weekend gathering leaves. Don't mind any yard work up until a point.

Why would you salt the earth---literally????
Salt is supposed to kill the stumps.
Glyphosate, triclopyr, picloram, and 2, 4-d (and various mixes) all have labeled products for cut stump treatments Triclopyr and picloram tend to work the best. Triclopyr moves less in the soil. the key is to treat as soon as you make the cuts..don't wait.

Might try Triclopyr instead of Glyphosate, thanks.

It is possible you could kill the surrounding trees with glyphosate if the roots have grafted onto each other. Glyphosate is a systemic herbicide and goes into the roots. You could try a contact herbicide (i.e. pelargonic acid or diquat) that will kill the suckers but multiple applications will be necessary and it may never kill the stump if it's getting nutrients from grafted roots. Without leaves the stump will eventually be starved of energy and die. Your only permanent option is grinding the stumps out deeper. You have to remove all the stem tissue; roots should not sprout stems. You could try burying the stumps with a couple of feet of mulch, sometimes that works.

Pelargonic and Diquat might be best and I don't mind treating them a few times. Didn't mention it before but am trying mulch on a couple of the stumps already, working so far but I don't have enough mulch to treat them all. Went deep with the stump grinder the first time and also got the visible roots above ground.

Thanks for all the help.

 

[southland1]

Why would you salt the earth---literally????

Glyphosate, triclopyr, picloram, and 2, 4-d (and various mixes) all have labeled products for cut stump treatments Triclopyr and picloram tend to work the best. Triclopyr moves less in the soil. the key is to treat as soon as you make the cuts..don't wait.

Salt is supposed to kill stumps.

 

[ATH]

Yes...if you use enough to kill the stumps, it is more than likely enough kill everything else using that soil as well. The folklore of 'salting the earth' comes from back in the day when one conquered a city, they'd spread large amounts of salt as a curse to anybody who tried to rebuild. Oh, and salt is a chemical...so I am just unclear why that is ever considered a better alternative than products designed to do their job then "disappear" (as much as possible).

 

[009L]

Why would you salt the earth---literally????

Glyphosate, triclopyr, picloram, and 2, 4-d (and various mixes) all have labeled products for cut stump treatments Triclopyr and picloram tend to work the best. Triclopyr moves less in the soil. the key is to treat as soon as you make the cuts..don't wait.

Yup,

I always had good luck with triclopyr (Garlon 4) and a dash of crop oil.

 

[beastmaster]

Oh yea, Know a guy who got a bite taken out of his thigh with one of those old promarks. The cutter wheel caught his chaps and sucked his leg in. Nothing some stitches couldn't patch up, but no more grinding in chaps after that .

I carry a nice scar under my chin from one of those old promark grinders. It kicked up the handle nailing me. Saw stars.

 

[BC WetCoast]

I carry a nice scar under my chin from one of those old promark grinders. It kicked up the handle nailing me. Saw stars.

Concussion protocol for you.

 

[hseII]

Maybe I'm missing something, but
Why not just rent an excavator and dig them up?

 

[beastmaster]

If you cut them at ground level cover them with some old carpet and cover with black plastic, it might do the trick without a lot of nasty chemicals.

 

[southland1]

Why would you salt the earth---literally????

Glyphosate, triclopyr, picloram, and 2, 4-d (and various mixes) all have labeled products for cut stump treatments Triclopyr and picloram tend to work the best. Triclopyr moves less in the soil. the key is to treat as soon as you make the cuts..don't wait.

See post #20.
http://www.arboristsite.com/community/threads/organic-tree-killing-solutions.293883/

 

[southland1]

Maybe I'm missing something, but
Why not just rent an excavator and dig them up?

Have dug up some with a small 20hp Kubota but these trees are on top of each other, not enough room to get an excavator in there on most of them plus renting excavators is expensive.

If you cut them at ground level cover them with some old carpet and cover with black plastic, it might do the trick without a lot of nasty chemicals.

Had thought about this, probably going to try this method.

 

[ATH]

Remind me...which is the sarcasm smiley? I didn't think that too subtle, but perhaps it was.

 

[hseII]

Maybe I'm missing something, but
Why not just rent an excavator and dig them up?

Hello OP!!

Do it already.

Is your time not valuable?

A mini excavator is $350-500/ day here.

You could get a lot done in a day.

 

[southland1]

Over a year and a half and 117 downed Sweet Gum trees I have found the best way in my experience to get rid of suckers. Girdle the tree, kills the roots before the tree is completely dead and no more suckers. The first ones girdled were 18 months ago and all have died except for a couple that I didn't completely girdle. One blew down in the winds from the most recent hurricane a couple of months back, already completely dried out. Placing something over the stump such as a plastic bag, carpet, or mulch is also effective but more time consuming.

 

[JTM]

Last year I cut several hundred sweet gum trees with a clearing saw and immediately treated with a 50/50 mix of water and 41% glyphosate. The garden sprayer was attached to my harness and I held the wand in my hand. Cut and apply. They did not sprout suckers this year. The 2.5 gallon container of 41% was about $30 from the co-op.