Blackberries

[ELITER]

Remember that blackberries grow by above ground runners, so the plants are often connected. If you spray one, you might kill several.

No offense, but as someone who has spent most of my years in a state where fighting blackberries is a full time occupation, roundup isn't even slightly effective on Blackberries. The only truly effective thing to do is to mow them down to dirt, often and let your cows eat the fresh greens as they are tender.

The sprayed blackberry vines are much more of a pain to deal with than fresh ones. when they get dried and brittle the thorns will easily puncture a thick pair of leather gloves.

For your situation I would recomend mowing the section down to dirt up to as close to the fence line as you want and then trim the rest back a bit, for eating blackberries the berries grow on the last years new growth so you don't want to cut off all of last years new growth or you won't have any berries.

Personally I find about a 6' tall hedge of blackberries ~3ft thick is ideal for picking but I prefer to maintain a hedge like wall so you can more easily pick. Another thing for picking is that the east facing berries will be much more supple and large...

Good luck to you!

 

[windthrown]

I feel your pain!

We have 100+ acres here, and spray regularly for blackberries, poison oak and scotch broom. I also use a tooth bar bolted onto the tractor bucket to mechanically remove the big thorny mounds before spraying them later (they will pop up from the roots). Or we use a saw blade attached to the Stihl FS85 weedwhacker to mow them down with. We also spray for bull thistle, Canada thistle, tansy ragwort, and a bunch of other invasive and noxious weeds. We use an assortment of Garlon, Roundup, Crossbow, and Velpar, as well as stickers, spreaders, and insecticides. We have backpack sprayers, hand held sprayers, and larger tank electric pump sprayers for the ATV.

I have to agree that Roundup is not effective on blackberries. It tickles them, and maybe will burn the leaves back, but it will not kill the roots. What you want to use for blackberries is Crossbow at the rate of 1% (which is about 3 TB per gallon of water). If you want an even more effective spray add a cup of diesel to a 3 gallon tank sprayer as well. That will really knock them down in a hurry. I find that spraying in early summer is best. Many pros and gov't types here prefer spraying in the fall, but that gives the plants more time to store more energy in the roots, as well as produce another crop of berries and seeds and another layer of canes and lateral branches. By the time they are spraying in the fall, our sprayed vines are stone dead and decaying. We usually apply Crossbow at the rate of 1.5% (4 TB per gallon) which adds effectiveness for killing Scotch brooms and Poison Oak. Get 'em all in one spraying session. Also once the leaves of PO turn color in the fall, no amount of spray will be effective, as the plants will not absorb any material from the leaves at that point.

Also in areas that are sensitive to Garlon and Crossbow foliar spraying, like in stream, pond and lakeside areas (they are not good for aquatic life) or in garden areas where you do not want spray to drift, I use another technique that I picked up from a fellow small woodland owner. That is to mix straight Garlon with agricultural oil at a rate of 1:3 in a jar. Then with gloves on, I go out and cut the canes of a blackberry plant and dip the cut ends into the garlon mix. You can also use a small paint brush to dab on the solution to the fresh cut stems. That will kill the blackberry right down to the roots. If it is a really big plant I dip 2 or 3 canes in the death juice. That is also effective to brush onto the basil stems of really large Scotch or Portugese brooms.

Good luck with the :censored: brambles!

 

[WPanhandler]

I have to agree that Roundup is not effective on blackberries. It tickles them, and maybe will burn the leaves back, but it will not kill the roots.


I have to agree with this, I have had limited success with roundup. I will try Crossbow.

Does anyone have experience with 'Sawbriers,' I have had good luck with my shovel and the woodstovebut that take a lot of time.

 

[M.D. Vaden]

How careful would a guy want to be with roundup around a food source? Seems like the kind of thing you would want to be extremely careful with. Even in the fall, isnt there a possibility of residual effects of the spray the next spring with the plants that got just enough not to kill it. :monkey:

My pesticides instructor in Oregon was one of the best in the regions, and he taught us that there is no other way to apply anything than being "careful".

No wind = no drift.

No excess concentration means no excess residue.

And the one thing he stressed, was that Roundup's worst enemy is dirt, soil and micro-organisms.

So applying in zero wind - crops wouldn't be a concern. In my case, I keep the sprayer on lower pressure to get fine droplets rather than fine mist. And I mix Roundup at 2/3 rate, as its fine to reduce rates.

Again, the only way to apply is "careful", and when done properly, there should barely be a few molecules making the way over to a crop

 

[windthrown]

I once had a Schedule Q license in California for applying pesticides and herbicides (back when I had a landscaping/tree biz with my brother). I have to disagree with several things said on this thread. Roundup is not that bad for the environment. Once it hits dirt it starts to break down, and fast. So spraying that stuff does not 'build up' in the soil. Second is that reducing the strength of Roundup is not a good idea. If anything, increasing the strength is usually better. In the particular case of glycophate (active ingredient in Roundup, the rest is mostly detergent), its effectiveness is decreasing as some types of weeds are gaining resistance. So we are breeding weeds for genetic resistance to the stuff as we use it, which is more of a problem when using lower consentrations. If you half kill them with weaker spray, the ones that live are going to pass on that resistance to the next genertions of weeds. There are several weeds that are showing this resistamce already.

As for overspray, I have never had any real issues with that. Spray on a calm day, and keep the sprayer low to the gound, and use a good sprayer head that has good flow. Watch where you clean out your sprayer and wear protective clothing, a pesticide rated respirator and most importantly, eye protection, as a lot of fungicides out there can blind you. That being said, my brother's first partner in the landscaping biz sprayed a yard with Roundup becasue they wanted to replant with sod. It was a breezy day, and the neighbor's yard got a good dose of the glycophate. He had to completely re-landscape the neighbor's yard as a result. Cost him a small fortune...

If you have or buy property with acreage, and you do not want to lose out to invasive species of plants, you will have to resort to using sprays or you will lose the battle. There is simply not enough time in your life to beat the invasive weeds back by hand, or with a tractor, or by burning. Sprays alone are not enough either. We use a combination of a propane field burner, mechanical removal with tooth bar on a tractor bucket (a great $180 investment!), a good Stihl straight bar trimmer with an assortment of blades and poly twine, shovels, and chainsaws, as well as an assortment of sprays and sprayers, and a lot of sweat.

 

[Slvrmple72]

Have you tried tilling around the border to limit propagation? Periodically cutting up the roots and removing anything that is "over the line". We till around ours twice yearly to keep them in check but not that big of a patch. We use a Troybilt Pony and only go about 6" deep. The bushes love the aeration and we throw grass clippings and manure around'em too. The stinkier the fertilizer the better tasting the produce!

 

[windthrown]

On this scale of the Hymalayan blackberry invasion under way in the west US, a TroyBilt tiller (I have 2 of them, a Horse and a Versatiller) is too small and hard to deal with for so large an area. Maybe a tractor tiller for the size that BobOak is dealing with, but even using that on a half mile is a lot of tilling, time, and gas used. Blackberries propogate several ways. Seeds, roots, and tip rooting. They do not runner as much as raspberries do, so tilling is not as an effective deterrant. I grow 5 types of black and 7 types of raspberries here (1/4 acre of trellis vineyard), along with the 3 types of 'wild' blacks and salmon and thimbleberris. I propogate many types for sale in my nersery, and destroy other types on the property. BTW: It is illegal to propogate or sell Hymalayan blackberry plants in OR.

Spraying is better, easier, less time consuming... and it works. Trust me... use Crossbow.

 

[M.D. Vaden]

BTW: It is illegal to propogate or sell Hymalayan blackberry plants in OR.

Spraying is better, easier, less time consuming... and it works. Trust me... use Crossbow.

Seriously !!

I'd never grow them, but that's interesting.

So California really likes those letters for licenses don't they - "Q" for pesticides and "C" something or other for landscape contracting.

Should be called the "spelling state"

 

[windthrown]

Yah, I once had the idea that I was actually going to make my fortune selling Himalayan blackberry (Rubus armeniacus, syn: R. discolor, R. fruticosa, and R. procerus) plants on Ebay (read: sell the damn roots that I pull up with the tooth bar). I looked into it and lo, they cannot be legally propagated or sold in OR. I thought about selling evergreen (Rubus laciniatus) blackberries, but they do not bear as much nor do they have as big a sized fruit crop. Nor do we have nearly as many of them here. We also have the native dewberries, or trailing blackberries (Rubus ursinus, syn. R. macropetalus), but they are small low growers, have small size fruit, and are trailing types. They are the ones you trip over on forest trails and stuff. We spray only the Himalayans. We also have salmon berries (Rubis spectabilis) here, a relative and the only speceis that I propogate out in the wilds on the property.

Note that the 3 first types were crossed with each other and raspberries to make most of the common commercial types of blackberries grown today. Logans, Olallie, Marion, Young, etc.

 

[Mkarlson]

Interesting fact on spraying in 0 wind. Here in Indiana we are taught 5mph wind is optimal spraying conditions. Yet there is a zero tolerance for off target damage. I believe the reasoning is for this is the many herbicides that will volatilize(once applied will up and move with certain weather conditions) least with a little wind you can pretty much guess where your off target kill is going to be and can take precautions.

I agree glyphosate will kill most of the time with reduced rate I've seen it kill with as little as a half rate. We have some farmers that have pushed that envelope and now we are starting to see some resistant strains of certain weeds. But I have seldom seen or heard of a homeowner using a reduced rate. We will tell "John Smith" to mix and apply 2,4-d at 1/2 to 3/4 pint per acre on his 2 acre yard and he will come back and get more herbicide cause that gallon he bought just wasnt enough.

But for safety sake what ever you decide to spray follow your label it tells you the rate and spraying method that will work best for your situation. Also pay attention to required PPE.

 

[davefr]

If you really want to kill them use Dupont Escort. It's much more effective then Glysophate or 2-4-D based products.

It's rather expensive but you only need about 2/3 teaspoon + a splash of ammonia for 3 gallons of spray.

http://www.dupont.com/ag/vm/products/Escort_herbicide.html

 

[sawyerDave]

Goat solution

Whoever tied that goat to the truck tire had the right train of thought, but not enough weight. Either use a bigger tire or use one with the rim still on it! We had a stray sheep end up on our farm, and we used the rim and tire till he got big enough to move it easily, then we ate him!

 

[Limbknuckle]

Berrys are good

I like blackberries but don't you think they look more purple. Just my opinion.

Homelite-all
mac-10 & 1/4 pounder
troybilt-wheel barrow
craftsman-saw file
corona-anything at lowes
hats-lowboy style
hooks-eagle claw
blocks-cinder

 

[windthrown]

Well, they are really an intense deep purple in color. No real black colors in nature, except for charcoal. But compared to the other berries, they are black.

 

[XSKIER]

On this scale of the Hymalayan blackberry invasion under way in the west US, a TroyBilt tiller (I have 2 of them, a Horse and a Versatiller) is too small and hard to deal with for so large an area. Maybe a tractor tiller for the size that BobOak is dealing with, but even using that on a half mile is a lot of tilling, time, and gas used. Blackberries propogate several ways. Seeds, roots, and tip rooting. They do not runner as much as raspberries do, so tilling is not as an effective deterrant. I grow 5 types of black and 7 types of raspberries here (1/4 acre of trellis vineyard), along with the 3 types of 'wild' blacks and salmon and thimbleberris. I propogate many types for sale in my nersery, and destroy other types on the property. BTW: It is illegal to propogate or sell Hymalayan blackberry plants in OR.

Spraying is better, easier, less time consuming... and it works. Trust me... use Crossbow.

I'll add another good review of Crossbow. After loosing the battle with trying to eradicate poison oak and ivy by mechanical means, I went to a full Crossbow assault. 1/2 gallon of Crossbow applied over a three acre area really knocked it down, didn't kill the grass, smoked the thistle and burdock, and didn't hurt the trees.

Now, how has that versatiller held up for you? I saw one, looked neat, but wonder the quality?

 

[windthrown]

Quality was good on the Versitiller, it has held up for many years. The only problem is a $2 dollar part in the handle that tends to break from flipping it from forward to rear tine action. They are small enough to manage and large enough to do a good job. I sold the horse because it was just too damn big to manage.

 

[066blaster]

2 - 4-d will work better than round up on anything broadleaf and the grass will remain after spraying . Look for something like tri- mec . It has 2-4-d and 2 other herbicides or weed be gone. I'm certified for restricted use pesticides and a certified lawn applicator. You can mix round up and 2-4-d products together. That's what I do when I want to kill everything. I would do 2 applications 2 weeks apart. Also a sticker spreader additive will help. Mix it strong!

 

[7sleeper]

I don't use poisen but the brush cutter mulchblade. With a larger brushcutter(>40cc) it atomizes the unwanted undergrowth. Of course it comes back but once a year is usually enough to keep it really down. The bended tips look downward.

Here is a demovideo from a fellow from german site. I work much faster with it.



7

 

[gunny100]

I have about a half mile of blackberries that border one side of my pasture. They make a good natural boundary but I need a way to keep them from taking over my whole ranch. Burning isn't an option.
What's a good herbicide to keep them in check?

have people come and pick the berries charge them by the quart
if the price is cheep
i think many people will pick them

 

[Gologit]

Thanks for the advice but that thread is almost 9 years old and I don't live there anymore.