paddock maintenance - buttercups - help!

[Queenbee]

Hi all,

I wonder if any of you wonderful people can help. Long story short I sectioned Ben's field off during the summer as he was a tad portly, I have been giving him a couple of foot at a time and then a little over a week ago opened up the rest. Since it is a wonderful 'all you can eat buffet' he has been up there munching away. When I took a closer look a couple of days ago, I can see that the buttercup patch has spread and essentially the grass is just a track around the outside, the center is just buttercups.

So I spoke to my YM and the plan is to sort this.

What I need to know is what is the best way to tackle them? Spray them, is it a ph thing? when is the best time to do this? How long should I rest the area for?

Any and all info greatly received.

QB

 

[MiJodsR2BlinkinTite]

Feeeling your pain, we wasted a lot of money here on trying to sort the dang buttercups and the poxy things still came back with a vengeance!

Having spoken to some local farmers, they all suggested that your best approach is to get your soil tested, as certain types of soil seem to encourage buttercups more (sorry can't remember which type!!).

One solution suggested was to put down lime, which changes the Ph........ - but you'd need to keep horses off it for a time (again, sorry can't remember how long, so not much use to you I'm afraid).

Hint: IF you do have a contractor with a weedkiller come in to spray the field, make sure you physically WATCH them put the right amount of the stuff in to spray with......I reckon we were had, and the guy doing ours didn't use the correct potency (a local farmer tipped me off concerning this and said ALWAYS to watch them do it )

 

[The Fuzzy Furry]

Spray in May to make buttercups go away

Need to keep them off for about 3 weeks or so after, also pray for no rain for a few days or so after.
I use a large contractor every 3 years or so, who comes and does mine all over & I restrict Fuzzies to a couple of tiny paddocks & give hay if necessary. Much easier to pay this company & they fit me in when doing the big farm 2 miles away - tho their sprayer is really set up for much larger fields as the boom arms are so wide!

Local farmer will have harrowed mine about a week before the contractor comes to spray.

 

[Queenbee]

Spray in May to make buttercups go away

Need to keep them off for about 3 weeks or so after, also pray for no rain for a few days or so after.
I use a large contractor every 3 years or so, who comes and does mine all over & I restrict Fuzzies to a couple of tiny paddocks & give hay if necessary. Much easier to pay this company & they fit me in when doing the big farm 2 miles away - tho their sprayer is really set up for much larger fields as the boom arms are so wide!

Local farmer will have harrowed mine about a week before the contractor comes to spray.

thank you both! Luckily its not all fields that need doing, just mine really. His paddock is not that big there are two main 'clumps' of buttercups that grow a bit more each year, I have never really bothered to do anything as he still has enough grass, it looks like this year, because I sectioned half the field off, they have just gotten worse :/

All the other fields don't seem to suffer, I suppose one or two might but mine is worst. One of the main issues is that ben is very very picky. so he eats around the patches, they grow big and strong and creep further and further out. The other horses don't tend to do this and graze their entire fields flat.

Anyway, we have a harrow and a sprayer... its just a hand sprayer but considering the size of the field it should not be too big a job to do. I also have somewhere I can put ben so it should all be good

 

[ycbm]

Spray with what, please?

 

[Queenbee]

lol, good question ycbm. I was talking to YO's husband - he was unsure too. I think my best bet will be to go to our farmers store and ask them, they will know what the guys normally use down this way.

 

[MotherOfChickens]

lol, good question ycbm. I was talking to YO's husband - he was unsure too. I think my best bet will be to go to our farmers store and ask them, they will know what the guys normally use down this way.

could be wrong but most of the good stuff can only be used by people were certificates and stuff now. they are a pain, spraying/liming and aggressive, regular topping help.

 

[JillA]

Spray with a product containing mecaprop and dicambar, (RelayP or Pastor) and do it every three years. Buttercups have underground rhizomes so they return with a vengeance, they are the reason I have a quad with a spray pack The product will be for licensed operators only but if you ask a good agronomist, there might by now be a replacement product available to all.
I'd like to know what do the organic people do - do sheep eat them, for example? Or do they plough and reseed, it seems a shame to plough in old leys because of them

 

[Antw23uk]

For anything decent you need to buy products that only licenced people can use ..... However you dont need a licence to buy the products ... just saying.

 

[oldie48]

Spray in May to make buttercups go away

Need to keep them off for about 3 weeks or so after, also pray for no rain for a few days or so after.
I use a large contractor every 3 years or so, who comes and does mine all over & I restrict Fuzzies to a couple of tiny paddocks & give hay if necessary. Much easier to pay this company & they fit me in when doing the big farm 2 miles away - tho their sprayer is really set up for much larger fields as the boom arms are so wide!

Local farmer will have harrowed mine about a week before the contractor comes to spray.

this is exactly what we do and it keeps them down to a minimum.

 

[lamlyn2012]

Envy is excellent for buttercup control and you can buy without licence.
Do not roll/harrow for 10 days before and 7 days after application.
Can use anytime from spring to about sept but weeds do need to be actively growing.
Stock exclusion 7 days (although I always allow a bit longer).

 

[Keith_Beef]

In my observation, buttercups prefer wet soil. If there's a way you could improve drainage that might help. You mention that this is a particular patch within a field... Would it be doable to plough over that patch and dig in coarse sand, and dig a ditch to drain away some of the water?

I think you also have to be careful that you don't cut the roots and carry bits to other parts of the field; some species spread by rhizomes and so root cuttings might spread the plant.

 

[Queenbee]

Hi all, will try and answer as many comments/suggestions in one reply sorry if I miss one or two but my brain is shutting off for the night...

Re: license - I am pretty sure YO's husband will have a license - I just offered to do the investigation as its my field in particular.

Re: License - Antw23uk - useful to know, thank you

Re: harrowing - this may well be one reason it has gotten particularly bad this year as YO's husband has been particularly poorly and spent a significant amount of time in hospital and when home - very very weak in the last year - only now is he getting better. As a result, no harrowing/topping has been done in at least 12 months - this combined with Ben refusing to eat anything close to the buttercup clumps, and the area with the largest clump being completely ungrazed for most of the summer has probably aggravated the issue.

Kieth_Beef, to be honest, whilst at the moment the soil is a tad waterlogged, its pretty good. I have often commented how well it drains and dries off in comparison to other land around us. Ok, this winter hasn't been great and has been pretty wet but on the whole its decent drainage. Im not inclined to start digging up significant chunks of the field - that's a far bigger job there are about 3 patches I want to treat - one small, one medium and one large... I am also not a huge fan of sand in grazing, I believe that carries its own risks for some horses, plus as I said - for the most of the year the ground is nice and firm - not waterlogged. Currently the gateway is boggy but that is about it, given a couple of dry days it would be fine.

 

[Darlabean]

Roll out some of a round bale hay over the patch, this will kill it off as it will be smothered from daylight. You will improve your organic matter as it rots and any seeds which drop will soon germinate in place and crowd it out over time, add some manure, preferably composted. Do it now while we have wet weather coming and time for it to rot down. Throw in a couple of handfuls of any other grass seed you wish to cultivate and leave. Spraying will destroy the permeaculture and create further soil conditions which buttercups love so won’t work long term. If you must spray, use grazon or headland relay.

 

[JillA]

Roll out some of a round bale hay over the patch, this will kill it off as it will be smothered from daylight. You will improve your organic matter as it rots and any seeds which drop will soon germinate in place and crowd it out over time, add some manure, preferably composted. Do it now while we have wet weather coming and time for it to rot down. Throw in a couple of handfuls of any other grass seed you wish to cultivate and leave. Spraying will destroy the permeaculture and create further soil conditions which buttercups love so won’t work long term. If you must spray, use grazon or headland relay.

Won't the buttercups regenerate from the underground rhizomes, and won't that kill any grass in the area?

 

[DabDab]

I hand sprayed with Thrust earlier this year, but as is was quite time consuming and I then became very busy with other stuff, so I only did 3 out of 5 fields. Those three had very few buttercups come summer and the other two fields were completely swamped with them. About a week after application you could see that the buttercup clumps had pretty much died back. The grass has taken over again in those areas now.

Will try to get round the rest this spring and hopefully the ground conditions have improved from where we were last year too.

 

[Darlabean]

Won't the buttercups regenerate from the underground rhizomes, and won't that kill any grass in the area?

.... over time with mulching and topping and being crowded out with good grass, they will weaken. Same prociple applies with nettles, btw. It’s about creating the right soil conditions and reducing compaction, which mulching will achieve. If you feed a round bale, directly on the spot for a few days, chuckle away at the “waste”, throw some native grass seed as well over it, don’t poo pick around it then move on to somewhere else, before compaction occurs, you’re improving soil structure. Old methods we used as kids from years ago worked and didn’t cause soil erosion!

 

[Queenbee]

Hi all, so after lots of advice from you all and some pm's with recommendations (thank you). I *think I have a plan of sorts. I will be spraying the yellow critters with chemicals and then looking into testing the soil to see about what I can do to make it a less welcoming place for future invaders... does this sound like a fair plan??

 

[Darlabean]

Not to me, no, for reasons outlined above. But good luck in tackling them.

 

[lamlyn2012]

We got rid of all ours this year by liming and spraying with envy. Used thrust in the past but not so effective.

 

[JillA]

Hi all, so after lots of advice from you all and some pm's with recommendations (thank you). I *think I have a plan of sorts. I will be spraying the yellow critters with chemicals and then looking into testing the soil to see about what I can do to make it a less welcoming place for future invaders... does this sound like a fair plan??

Yes - and a spin off from spraying is you get rid of docks, nettles, thistles and clover too. I hadn't realised how much the clover was smothering and outcompeting the grass until it had been sprayed off a couple of years ago

 

[Adopter]

Our fields were full of buttercups when we first moved in, we were given some geese as s moving in present and they love Buttercups, so now there are none left. They pull them up by the roots. Added bonus is that geese are a deterrent in your field, which as our fields are along side a public footpath has been s great help.