Novel ragwort approach

P

Polos Mum

Well-Known Member
Joined
22 September 2012
Messages
6,348
Location
West Yorkshire
Visit site
Just wondered if anyone else has tried the following - recommended by local farmer.

Get a bucket of strong ish roundup type chemical (glycophosphate - kills everything) and a paint brush and give each plant a wipe with the paint brush. His (and mine)view is that digging is pointless long term as you can't get all the root outso it just regrows and this would be more efficient than spraying everything with someething that doesn't kill grass.

Views?
 
i wouldnt want to a. risk my horse until i had picked all ragwort and i couldnt keep him in while said chemical did its job
b. what happens to dead ragwort you still have to go pick it
c. i wouldnt be the slightest big happy putting a chemical of any sort near where my horse was grazing.

big no no for me sorry x
 
it called weed wiping has been around for years but clothes on sticks have been used or indeed sponges, you can buy a weed wand i think it is called it is a hollow stick that you fill with chemical and it has a pad like sponge on the bottom you put sponge on plant and push down and the weed killer is applied directly to a bruised leaf on the plant, the leaf has to bruised for the chemical the be absorbed.
same as any weed killer use livestock has to stay off the grazing until all of the plant has rotted away or been removed by hand
 
Weed wiper as above. You can get machines that can be pulled along by a quad.

If you give flowering plants a really good dose of any of the products recommended for ragwort control from a knapsack sprayer it will also kill the plant. I am talking about a really strong dose and thoroughly wetting the ragwort.

Pulling is a waste of time unless it is to remove plants that will seed if left as there always seems to be some bits left in the ground..
 
My dad did this wiyh our field when we took it on some 20 years ago from the road you would have thought we were growing sun flowers, he did this but used proper old fashioned ceasote, only did it one year but it worked i still have some but only a barrow load this year if some one would do the m20 & a20 I doubt id have any! But its a see of yellow every flipping year n it just blowes over x
 
I don't think pulling ragwort is a waste of time at all, you just have to be thorough. I've lived at my farm for 12 years; in year 1 we pulled 32 wheelbarrow loads off 7.5 acres, year 2 it was about 18 loads, for the last 5 years we have had between 12 PLANTS and 0, 1 or 2 plants total for the last 3 years. Don't like spraying with the chemicals, I even dig up the dock plants and they are nearly eradicated too.
 
I'd certainly not do it with the horses in the field - TBH I don't let them in the field with known ragwort - if I spot the odd rossette in the field they are in I do dig those.

It's more bits on the verge etc that aren't controlled by the council sadly!
 
When we bought some land 15 years ago it was overgrown with ragwort and not a lot else. Every year we have pulled it using ragforks and when we first started it would take about 5 of us at least four full weekends and trailer loads to clear it. Now I take a wheel barrow and it takes me on my own about 20 minutes. So pulling definitely works and I think the ragwort we have now is mainly caused by my neighbours fields not being treated and they are full of the stuff like ours was when we bought our land.
 
I must be digging in the wrong way, I dig out as many of the roots as I can see to a depth of 3/4 inches but often the next year I find clumps of maybe 8/15 mini plants all growing in a tiny area when I remember there being an older plant the year before!
 
Our place was bad for ragwort when we bought it..... it's just about under control some 23 years on..... we do the roundup in the knapsack thing..... pull and use salt definitely works...... occasionally we use a contractor/sprayer for the odd field......

I am increasingly worried about the spread of Giant Hog Weed locally, all over the place, we don't have any yet!!!! and god help us if we get Japanese Knot Weed, loads at Perth though I'm told.

Why on earth are these plants permitted to gain such a hold?
 
Knotweed is not difficult to get rid of. We had it here. Strong Roundup applied about now 3 times in a fortnight. Job done. Ours never tried it's luck again. Guessing that Giant Hogweed would react the same way.

I have almost got rid of Ragwort this year here. Spot spray with selective weedkiller early in the year and then any I miss I later spot spray with Roundup and any further that I may have missed I dig. This year only about 20 plants. Things are improving, I am very pleased.
 
Spook said:
.(Snipped)
Why on earth are these plants permitted to gain such a hold?
Click to expand...

The answer is quite simple. DEFRA inspectors, or more precisely the Rural Payments and Inspections Directorate branch of Defra, have a duty under the Weeds Act 1959 to take action when a weed infestation comes to their notice. Farmers who have signed up to Cross Compliance are required to control weeds or they can get their Single Farm Payment docked.

The reason DEFRA don't take action is because they are totally incompetent!

There is a four acre plot up wind of my land infested with ragwort. This was reported to the RPID. The first year they stated they "did not have time" to deal with it because they were busy with potato inspections. (If they had gone 1/2 a mile out of their way and looked out of the car window, they would have seen the problem!).

The second year they stated they could not contact the owner.

The third year they said they could not serve a legal notice because the landowner would not accept a recorded delivery letter. (Their own internal guidance states that a Notice may be served by affixing it to the premises. Anyway, a refused recorded delivery letter is apparently sufficient notice!)

The fourth year they did serve a notice. The owner went around with a weed burner which was totally ineffective and didn't kill the weeds.

The fifth year (2013) someone sprayed the weeds but clearly got the dosage wrong as there is now an even bigger infestation than before! Isn't it DEFRA who licence these contractors? That explains it!:rolleyes:

All the above has been handled through DEFRA's Central Complaints Team in Edinburgh.

The moral of this story is if you want public servants to do their job, don't vote Liberal Democrat! I won't start of ditch cleaning and flooding as I've bored you enough already!

IT IS A NATIONAL DISGRACE!
 
Over the years we have managed to reduce our ragwort problem so now the occasional walk around with Escort or similar keeps everything well down. I have found horses don't normally choose to eat ragwort.....as long as they are not pushed too hard and taken off the sprayed plants for a week or two everyone is fine!! Sheep are good for controlling to a certain extent but they can't manage 'old man' plants......
 
Alyth said:
Sheep are good for controlling to a certain extent but they can't manage 'old man' plants......
Click to expand...
And if you don't mind them getting liver damage! They are less susceptible to the poison than horses but are still poisoned, and can die. Luckily, they are still safe to eat, because it's the damage from poison that is cumulative not the poison itself.
 
A farmer friends recommends spraying each plant with diesel, which not only kills it but means it is also unpalatable to horses. This is not the case with many weedkillers, hence the risk in spraying/paining with weedkiller, because by the time it has died it is also palatable to the horse. I prefer to have the lot weed sprayed and hand pull any I can see.
 
We did them out with a ragfork and have got them very well under control. Our problem is the nearby railway line is infested so seeds always blow across.
 
Cortez said:
I don't think pulling ragwort is a waste of time at all, you just have to be thorough. I've lived at my farm for 12 years; in year 1 we pulled 32 wheelbarrow loads off 7.5 acres, year 2 it was about 18 loads, for the last 5 years we have had between 12 PLANTS and 0, 1 or 2 plants total for the last 3 years. Don't like spraying with the chemicals, I even dig up the dock plants and they are nearly eradicated too.
Click to expand...

I agree with this - I have been digging out ragwort every year for 6 years and every year there is less and i have hardly any this year. Hard work but it does work.
 
My YO has sprayed the top ends of my fields, left it for 3 weeks and am now busily removing the sprayed ragwort and reclaiming it for the horses bit by bit.

YO says to leave the roots as they'll rot and just remove the visible bits of the plant, a lot of the plants look pretty healthy to me, so I pull those up with my ragfork but the dying ones I do as directed by YO.

I have been putting the wastage in empty chaff bags, I guess I will take it to the tip if my YO doesn't have some plan to dispose of it.

This is my second year in that field and second year YO has sprayed, my fields were used by transitory liveries and so the poo picking and ragworting were not done properly for a few years. I think there is less this year than last year, and am hoping that next year this trend will continue, but it still feels pretty bad!
 
I do have a rag fork but confess not to use it much as it's very heavy to drag around compared to a hand fork, and it's too big for the rosettes coming out of seed this year. Maybe I should persist with that in the field they are in.

Difficulty with knapsack sprayer is it's too heavy when full - and smaller ones need filling too often - maybe I should put loads in the car are re fill a small sprayer to do them.
 
SydneyB said:
What does everyone do with the plants once you've got them up? The yard owner usually burns it but it makes me nervous!
Click to expand...

We burn ours. I don't think ragwort can go into the normal domestic bin system as it is a specified weed under the weeds act. Chck with the EA, but burning is definitely allowed (upto 5 tonnes of ragwort a day without a licence...)
 
For those that say picking doesn't work, you should take note of the saying "one years seed is seven years weed". Plant seeds don't all germinate at the same time, so this years seed could well germinate over a seven year period.
 
You have to burn the stuff, and always wear gloves when clearing ragwort, it is highly dangerous to humans too if it gets in your blood stream via a cut/graze etc...
I agree DEFRA are a waste of space. I sent them photos of a field absolutely covered in ragwort, so tall you could barely see the poor ponies standing in it. The ponies had no water either. DEFRA didn't want to know. It was thanks to WHW that these ponies were rescued from a dire situation.
 
Suelin said:
Knotweed is not difficult to get rid of. We had it here. Strong Roundup applied about now 3 times in a fortnight. Job done. Ours never tried it's luck again. Guessing that Giant Hogweed would react the same way.

I have almost got rid of Ragwort this year here. Spot spray with selective weedkiller early in the year and then any I miss I later spot spray with Roundup and any further that I may have missed I dig. This year only about 20 plants. Things are improving, I am very pleased.
Click to expand...

you have to be really really careful with knotweed, it is classed as controlled waste and has to be removed by licenced waste carriers, not just tipped in the grass clippings.

I have always pulled our ragwort, we get hardly any.
 
I have sprayed ragwort in our resting field & it has done its job but I then have to remove the dead plants. Would this then mean the roots are also dead??? This is my second year there & we only pulled last year with rag fork & they still came back. The problem is we are next to a road that brings the seeds in....:mad:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top