vines killing woods???

[kenabcd]

The back of our farm has a nice woods consisting of a kind of eastern hardwood mix. cherry, butternut, ash, oak, and elm are the main trees. I have noticed within the last few years that there are woody vines kind of crawling up the trees and pulling them down. Killing them. The vines wrap up the trees and the trees die. Looks parasitic. The vines travel accross the ground and pile up in some areas. The thickest vines are along the ground sometimes 2 to 3"
in diameter. I have been cutting the vines down but I guess I need to spend more time out there cause the vines are winning.

I was wondering what the heck these things are and if there is a better way to get rid of them. If I was 500 miles south Iwould say it almost looks like mutant kudzu but with our cold winters(central Minn.) it can't be that and they are too big anyway.

Any help with identifing these '"weeds" would be welome.

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by kenabcd
Any help with identifing these '"weeds" would be welome.

A detailed description or preferable a picture posted may help. Some vines are tree-killers, some not. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Use caution. In some areas Poison Ivy grows up trees.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Yes, I've observed that myself.

 

[Sylvatica]

Ken,
In my area, Asiatic bittersweet is a MAJOR problem. Grape vine and to a lesser degree, Jap honeysuckle as well. I don't have experience with the Minn area, though.

The bittersweet (celastrus orbiculatus) will climb, girdle, and eventually overtop valuable native trees, shading them out. This invasive weed is like a thug which smothers its victims, often wrestling them to the ground.

If I have any time available at all, I will not walk past the plant when there is a saw in my hand without cutting it.

Many states, municipalities, and private land owners are ignoring celastrus, probably for budgetary reasons if they know it at all, but the expense of doing so, in the long run, will be extreme. Pros need to be aggressively advocating for the extermination of this invasive, as it is leading to more fragmentation of ecosystems by damaging the plant diversity of large areas.

 

[rbtree]

Good thing Minn and the northern US are out of range of the dreaded kudzu.

Here in the PNWet, we have lots of infestations of English ivy, and wild clematis. Less prevalent is wisteria. I have seen mature ivy with 5 inch and bigger stems...nasty stuff. Wild clematis is typically much smaller, and spreads everywhere, on the ground and aloft, extremely fast grower, maybe 30 feet a year, with long canes mostly under 1 inch. Wisteria is seen less often, most likely a result of someone planting it and letting it go. I have seen wisteria vines up to 1 foot in diameter. I just saw one that had totally engulfed an 80 foot alder in its tentacles, and one runner had somehow bridged over to a tree 40 feet away, seemingly through space. Perhaps it accomplished this by growing up on its own and eventually toppling over from its own weight. I could imagine no other explanation.

While all vines are a scourge and extremely difficult for an arborist to remove, rarely do they kill a tree. By the time the vine has taken over most of the canopy, limb dieback will occur and eventually the tree may die, many years later. Also, if cut at the base, 99% of the time the aloft growth will die. None of the vines live off live wood, but only cling to it. Sometimes, some life will linger. This is typically where the vines have found a cavity with enough decay to support rooting.

 

[kenabcd]

A little better description

The vines move along the ground and seem to attach themselves to the ground and trees when ever they can. The vines may be 50 to 100 feet or longer and up to 3" on dia. on the biggest ones.The larger vines are woody white sap wood with dark heart wood in the older plants. The wood is soft.

Bark has long narrow plates longitudinal very dark scales about 1 to 2 inches long attached in the center. the base of the bark is lighter brown. they are very bent with sharp angles, looking like they are turning to try and attach to something alive.

They do kill trees, never mind the bath water. there are no leaves along the vines. They seem to like cherry trees the best. So do we so I am concerned. If we could get them to get after the boxelder only it would be a win win deal. The vines grip the trees tightly enough to strangle the trees. It seems that the real climbers are about 1" diameter. I thought they may be tapping trees due to the lack of leaves on the vines. As I said they seem to be parasitic instead of symbiotic.

We do have bittersweet, I do not think that these plants are related because the vines move very fast, it seems that the native bittersweet grows very slowly. There are no orange berries.

I thought that these would be common to someone on here because they move quickly and kill trees. I do not think that these are that isolated, others must have them and need to deal with them.

Thanks to those who replied, Ken Bauman

 

[MasterBlaster]

Just go krazy on them with these...

 

[che]

Are you sure they're not just wild grape* vines? I don't remember seeing them in Minnesota, but they're all over the woods here in Kentucky. The LARGEST are 3" in diameter, and they not near as fast growing as some of the other invasive type vines (honeysuckle, wisteria, etc.)

*I've never seen them fruiting, though. I've harvested the smaller vines for wreaths....the larger ones look like something out of an old Tarzan movie.

 

[kenabcd]

They could be...

They certianly could be grape vines I would have said they look like they are out of a Tarzan movie except we are located a long way north of anything that generally looks tropical.

I have some wild grapes in the front yard, they do have small fruit that makes good jelly. I thought that the vines in the woods were too large to be grapes but they could be. The scale of the vines may have confused me, I will have to compare the vines to see if they are the same. Thanks for the suggestion, sometimes it takes another's perspective to see what may be in front of you.

Thanks for the hatchet suggestion, most of them can be cut with a large lopping shears, a chainsaw is overkill, the old hatchet may be the best approach, sometimes the old fasioned ways still work.

Ken Bauman

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

What do the leaves look like?

You may want to dab a little stump killer on the cuts as you go, that way you won't have to come back and make 10 new cuts for each one you did.

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Hatchets can be very bad if tree trunks are hit; loppers better.
Surely you cand get a leaf and ID this thing.
Poisoning cuts smart if they'r etoo big to pull out of the ground by hand, my preferred way of eradicating Vitis.

 

[kenabcd]

The vines do not exit the ground too near the the trunks and even if they did I would prefer the damage to the trunk to the slow death as they are covered and pulled down. Thanks for the concern, I will be careful with sharp objects around non-target plants.

The chances of finding a leaf from these vines this time of the year are slim to none. It is winter here. I will look though. I have not seen any leaves around ground level. There may be some in the canopy but the vines do not seem to have any lateral branches, just straight up the trees to the top.

 

[Skeeter]

Grape Vine Picture

I was reading with interest and thought I might be able to help by posting a pic of some Iowa grapevine in its natural setting.

Is this what is being experienced ?

Skeeter

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by kenabcd
The chances of finding a leaf from these vines this time of the year are slim to none. It is winter here.

Sorry to hear it; we hit 80 yesterday, and we're one day away form the latest ever first freeze. But the globe ain't warming, naaah, a scientist told us that and he must be right, he's got a PhD...

Re leaves, if the snow cover isn't too thick you can see the ground, right? What's on the ground? Leaves!!
Sure they may be dead but they can be ID'd. That or whack off some vine sections and take them to your county extension agent for ID next time you're in town.
Know thy enemy!

 

[kenabcd]

Che and Skeeter, they are grapes

I think that Skeeter solved my identity crisis. The vines are grape vines. They look like the picture, except for there are many more covering the trees and trailing around the ground.

We have snow in the woods, I think kicking thru the underbrush and collecting leaves would be futile. There are so many leaves that trying to determine which ones were from the vines would not work out. I will chop and them away from the trees and sleep better knowing that they are pretty harmless.

Sorry to hear about the rough weather that you are having down south, 80° would be tough to take. I enjoy winter and we look forward to the first below zero weather. It tends to keep the rif-raff out.

Thanks for the answers to my question, Ken Bauman

 

[Davidsinatree]

Kenabcd, I have the same vine problem in my woods. when I bought this property 7 years ago I started attacking them with hatchet & chain saw. The vines climb as high as the tree is tall. They had already claimed a few trees before I got them under control. Once the vine has been cut they dont just rot an fall out of the branches very fast either, they like to hange around looking like a big rats nest.I just cleaned out a nest that had been dead about 4 years in a big hackberry, got tired of looking at the mess. I pulled some of the bigger vines out with tractor. I am winning the battle slowly. The vine description you have given sounds just like what I have. I cut on them in winter time, easier to get to. Stay after them with cutting tools you will gain control of them invaders trying to steal your timber. :alien:

oh, and they are fun to swing around on!

Have fun cutting!

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Yes cut away on those grapevines. 3 Tips:

1. First pull as much root as you can out of the ground.

2. Then cut at ground level (loppers still best tool--a stout loppers is a good investment) and IMMEDIATELY douse the cut w concentrated herbicide.

3. Next spring when leaves are forming (what is that in MN, June?), spray new growth w herbicide.

Pulling the tops out w a tractor may work but it may also damage the tree severely. Ladder and pole pruner will get out most of the unsightliness. Remember pulling out those "nests" is evicting, and this time of year probably killing, wildlife.

 

[coffeecraver]

Garlon applied to fresh cuts should solve your problem.
I believe it is a registered use pesticide,so you may need to
hire a Certified Pesticide Applicator to obtain the chemical and apply it correctly.