Sapium sebiferum

[texasnative]

i have a small patch of land that has been in my family since 1940. 2 1/2 acres of grass (and giant woodpile-man i need a chipper!) and 4 1/2 of woods. and one acre of old house and yard. the timber was logged in 1988 and wasn't replanted. i have a healthy population of both hardwoods and syp. i am managing this for my daughter who is three. she is the one who will profit from my woodlot after i have passed on. there are a few older, large trees that were left when the land was logged, but for the most part everything is very young, and the pines are very vigorous, growing straight and tall as they compete with each other for light.

now for my problem. in 1950 somethinorother, my grandmother planted a chinese tallow tree in her yard. now there is every bit of a thousand of them in my little 4 1/2 acres of woods. some of the pines are starting to overtake them, but i want to eradicate them from my woodlot. i don't want them competing with my valuable trees for light. i want my valuable trees competing with each other so they will grow tall and straight. i am managing the land for a selective harvest, not a clear cut, so i want room for new seedlings of syp and hardwood to thrive, not just survive.

if i cut down one chinese tallow, five suckers sprout to replace it i have gone through and matcheted deep and wide wounds on many in the hopes of slowing their growth, but i want them gone. i have thought about cutting them down and painting an herbicide on the stumps, but this is going to be VERY labor intensive. perhaps there is something that i could inject into the vascular system of these trees that will kill them. any ideas?

 

[Stumper]

perhaps there is something that i could inject into the vascular system of these trees that will kill them. any ideas?

Yes. You can buy a tool from Ben Meadows company that will shoot herbicide capsules into the tree.-About $400 for the gizmo and another $200 for 600 capsules of Triclopyr. It takes multiple capsulse for larger trees. You can also grab a sharp hatchet , Pour 8% Triclopyr ( that would be Ortho Brush-B-Gon straight out of the bottle) into a hand sprayer and walk your proberty chopping down into the bark around the circumference of each tree and sqirting in the herbicide. Leaves usually start yellowing within a week or so. Once they have yellowed up you can cut the trees with very little chance of survival/resprouting.