toad flax blues

Not to make light of the situation but don’t forget “the path to success is built and paved with the failures”. As Andy said, experience is invaluable but also built on a lot of trial and error.

Sicklehocks – weed populations left over from or generated via previous farming systems can be a real pain to deal with. I’m an advocate of using whatever means you need to get it under control.

Well you’re most likely going to almost fail against this little plant. Yellow toadflax is one tough hombre that can keep going either by seeds or underground rhizomes. Darn stuff grows along roadsides and even in old railroad yards. It’ll take on most other plants and win, especially with the native varieties which includes whatever your trying to grow. The rhizomatous habit makes getting rid of it almost impossible. In other words, leave even a piece of root and it all starts over again. You can spray but sprays are at best “iffy” according to what I’ve come up against. Fall spraying seems to work best up in Colorado. Picloram has been the most effective herbicide anyone I’ve talked with has used. But if you spray during rainy season, the stuff dilutes. Graze it? I’ve read dalmation toadflax is “mildly toxic” to livestock. And you’re right about quarantining the livestock, heck if you plow up the stuff, wash everything or you’ll bring it home. I don’t envy you. This stuff likes it where nothing else grows. Rent a flamethrower. It won’t help but you’ll work off some stress.

I’ve had similar battles with yellow bamboo someone thought would be good for erosion control. You know it’ll take quite a jug of vinegar but that works on bamboo and other stuff. But 20 acres …. wow! Good luck, new lease?

I zeroed in on this Toadflax post because in several areas of the country I’ve had to deal with one plant or another brought in as an ornamental to say a local nursery and folks put it in their gardens. Next thing you know everybodies got some.

We went to a friends place in Colorado a few years back and he told me the horror stories of the stuff. It was taking over some 120 acres of his and a neighbors spread in an area. I’ve had to try and deal with bamboo, vinca major a stuff that looks like english ivy but stays on the ground, and New England is overrun run with a similiar flowering plant that someone missed from the old country. Heck starlings and grackles are imported along with pythons in the everyglades, but I’m getting off message. Toadflax is such a concern in the Dakota’s if you spot it the state will help you out. I couldn’t believe the states trying to eradicate it either. Washington has a moth that’s providing some control but California, where it was introduced as low water plant or xerascape, is having an awful time of it in some parts.

What gets me is the height it grows to. 5 foot is a pretty good sized flower in my book. And the stuffs from Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Romania so you know the soil is sparse in some areas at best. And the methods they are trying really take time, here’s a clip from one site I found: Intensive clean cultivation can effectively control Dalmatian toadflax. Cultivation methods must continue for at least two years, with eight to ten cultivations in the first year and four to five in the next year.

I like your idea of canola, switch grass, or even corn if it wil shade or choke it out. Glad to hear the cows will at least munch on it, burro’s might be better suited, or goats. But if the guys in the next fields aren’t on it like you are ….. wow. I even thought of maybe really improving the soil to choke it out. Afterall weed killer is basically a super fertilizer when you get down to it. What it does is cause a plant to outgrow itsself. Post made a weed killer for bermuda grass which left even large leafed tender plants like Iris alone but I found nothing for toadflax anywhere.

I like all your ideas for animals on the patch. Hogs do a pretty good job on whatever. We had an old fellow out here who dug himself a stock pond that wouldn’t hold water. He threw 50 hogs on the acre and a half and they tromped it down pretty good and the next thing you knew he had himself a big old pond. Maybe the freeze and the plowing this winter will help, but bless you and good luck.