Stopped in traffic and amazed to see ponies out with ragwort...

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Highlands

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Daily commute takes me up M5 onto M6 interchange. Recently traffic been bad and seen some nice welsh ponies, looking very trim ... Nice to see as nearly always see them too well covered!

Anyway stopped today and the field is covered in ragwort... Everywhere , shocked to see ponies still out on a bare enough field to munch it.... Local yard too , ponies out in it.

Our lands not perfect but we always remove with a fork ASAP as we see it.... We have sprayed before now, taken it to the top or burnt it.. No way are my ponies been left in with it. Someone tried to sell me some hay the other day and was shocked when I said no way that's ragwort... Is it came the reply , pretty plant...

I know you can report people and that highways are not good but I'm I missing some news that ragworts not toxic ?
 
Common sight sadly, whilst there's lots of owners that do their best to remove potentially harmful plants from their grazing there's probably equally as many that don't.

Doesn't help that the wet & mild winter seems to have yielded a bumper crop this year although I was delighted that this week whilst doing my round of the field I only pulled a couple of pathetically weedy ragwort plants so I'm hoping that they're getting the message that they're not welcome here!
 
Some locals here recently spent two days repainting their show jumps in the midst of a ragwort infested field. Time well spent.
 
Amazes me as well ! several horse paddocks in my village which are covered. One next to my new field not impressed ! but I just think its lack of knowledge how toxic the plant is and how much it actaully spreads so quickly. Soon as I see it grow the dam plant is dug up and burnt
 
There are paddocks local to me rented out by a local yard and they are never ragworted! The farmer just cuts it all down with a tractor in some paddocks. I have reported a mare and very young foal to WHW last week. They are in a very small paddock 24/7, they have water but the field is full of ragwort, poo and no grass at all. Its only a matter of time before they start to eat the ragwort. I rang WHW but i don't think they can do anything because the mare and foal aren't thin!! Its so annoying the mare is so sweet. The paddock is about a 1/4 of an acre so its not even big enough for them! The foal is about 2-3 months old and was lying down in the poo and dirt yesterday. I feel so sorry for them, not to mention the scruffy barbed wire fence. I am going to leave a note on the paddock gate asking them to ragwort and poo pick just in case they are clueless.
 
Ragwort is an issue where my horse is kept. The farmer has sprayed it a couple of times since I've been there but it never seems to make much difference and the problem seems to get worse each year. I've got fed up with spending more time digging ragwort than riding so am leaving at the end of the month - largely because of this.
 
Not always as straightforward as it may appear.

Last spring I had a choice between spraying my small paddock for the ragwort (5th year running - it was infested when we bought it) which was growing there, or allowing the horses to graze around it to avoid thoroughly trashing their winter land as it had been a very wet spring. I had 11 ponies on 5 acres, with lots of ragwort for a couple of months, and then sprayed in the autumn. Lesser of two evils, and they really won't eat it unless they're starving to death or it's in hay.

As it happens, it worked a treat, allowed all the seeds to germinate ready for the autumn spray and we have hardly any this year.
 
It's not that unusual unfortunately, not that this makes it acceptable.

It is an ongoing problem which can quite quickly get out of hand if its not kept on top of.

ETA my field is 99.9% ragwort free!
 
I pulled ragwort last yr. This yr it's cone back 10 times worse. If you pull one out but leave 3 bits of root in. You will get 3 in its,place the following yr. The wet winter doesn't help. I'm pulling still every day but I keep finding more. I have plenty of grass horses won't eat ragwort unless they are starving. I'd be more worried about finding it in hay thathas been cut from nearby fields as once dry it looses it's horrible taste
 
I don't fret too much about a bit of it, as in over time as I try to get rid of it, they really don't eat it, but if the paddocks are very bare they are likely to graze very closely around it and get irritated noses.

I spent a lot of time on it last summer as the people around us left theirs which meant it got blown up to us and spraying didn't work due to rain and being done too late, but my new field I haven't seen one plant! Woohoo free time! Well, poo picking!
 
A lot of it is down to knowledge I think. A lady on my yard inherited a field which swiftly grew a lot of ragwort after some heavy rain. She knew it was poisonous so off she went with her ragfork and started digging it out. After a few days I asked her what she was doing with it as the rest of us were burning it in a drum. She said she was collecting it up in pile to remove later. Once I pointed out that leaving it wilting in the field makes it potentially more edible to the horses she was horrified and removed it immediately.
Another lady told me you should only pull it when it has flowered as its easier to remove.
 
Thanks to DEFRA, I am becoming a sort of authority on ragwort! Here are a few facts….

It is a noxious weed listed in the Weeds Act 1959.

It is the occupier who is responsible for controlling it, not necessarily the landowner.

BUT where someone collects the Single Farm Payment (a complicated sort of subsidy for farmers), they must control ragwort and the other noxious weeds.

Where someone has a legitimate complaint that the weed might spread to arable land from adjacent land, the occupier must take action or DEFRA can employ a contractor to spray the weeds and recover the costs from the occupier.

A private individual may have a case for damages where an adjacent occupier does nothing about ragwort. A Notice issued by DEFRA would be good evidence on an infestation.

The law, as above, is enforced by DEFRA/Rural Inspections and Payments Directorate. These people have a duty to enforce the law. If you report ragwort and they don't take action, you should escalate a formal complaint against DEFRA through official channels! (See DEFRA web site).

Cutting and pulling is largely a waste of time. The best way is to spray in spring and autumn when the plant is at the floret stage, i.e. the year before it flowers. Control really is possible and it is not that expensive.

There is a lot of good sense on this thread and it is encouraging to see that the word is getting about. We really should not have to put up with it just because DEFRA and local authorities can't be bothered.
 
From a distance Oil Seed Rape may appear to look like Ragwort as it is also yellow.
Every flower from a Ragwort plant will contain about 100,000 seeds and this is why the Ragwort plant spreads so rapidly.
Always take a heavy duty industrial grade plastic refuse bag to the Ragwort plant and place the plant in it immediately otherwise the seeds will be scattered over the ground only to germinate at a later date.
The most effective way to kill Ragwort is by spraying it. If spot spraying something like Barrier H is good but you need to spray it twice and at a weekly interval so that the roots are completely killed off. Leave for at least 2 weeks after the final spray to allow for the roots to be completely killed off.
Pulling it up leavers the root in place only to re-generate.
Ragwort will always return the following year as the ground will be contaminated with seeds from previous Ragwort plants so you will need to continually be treating the Ragwort
 
Dry Rot said:
Thanks to DEFRA, I am becoming a sort of authority on ragwort! Here are a few facts….

It is a noxious weed listed in the Weeds Act 1959.

It is the occupier who is responsible for controlling it, not necessarily the landowner.

BUT where someone collects the Single Farm Payment (a complicated sort of subsidy for farmers), they must control ragwort and the other noxious weeds.

Where someone has a legitimate complaint that the weed might spread to arable land from adjacent land, the occupier must take action or DEFRA can employ a contractor to spray the weeds and recover the costs from the occupier.

A private individual may have a case for damages where an adjacent occupier does nothing about ragwort. A Notice issued by DEFRA would be good evidence on an infestation.

The law, as above, is enforced by DEFRA/Rural Inspections and Payments Directorate. These people have a duty to enforce the law. If you report ragwort and they don't take action, you should escalate a formal complaint against DEFRA through official channels! (See DEFRA web site).

Cutting and pulling is largely a waste of time. The best way is to spray in spring and autumn when the plant is at the floret stage, i.e. the year before it flowers. Control really is possible and it is not that expensive.

There is a lot of good sense on this thread and it is encouraging to see that the word is getting about. We really should not have to put up with it just because DEFRA and local authorities can't be bothered.
Click to expand...

So what about motorway and dual carriageway verges? These seem to be a major reservoir for seeding ragwort but it just gets left year on year.
 
Ignorance and laziness are a great combination...........We pull religiously (no, I don't mean with hymns or anything....) and have gone from 27 barrow loads in the first year to 5 plants in total this year. This is after 13 years mind you, but WE HAVE WON. Vigilance is key, though.
 
Kezzabell2 said:
I pulled ragwort last yr. This yr it's cone back 10 times worse. If you pull one out but leave 3 bits of root in. You will get 3 in its,place the following yr. The wet winter doesn't help. I'm pulling still every day but I keep finding more. I have plenty of grass horses won't eat ragwort unless they are starving. I'd be more worried about finding it in hay thathas been cut from nearby fields as once dry it looses it's horrible taste
Click to expand...

This sums up my situation pretty well too!

Seem to do nothing but find the dratted stuff this year - have pulled 4 bags already and it's still appearing. Partly the fault of the wet winter and the blasted people either side of me who can't be bothered. On one side is a sort of quarry/wood/wasteland and the other a bloke who bought the field but has no idea how to manage it. He had it cut for hay twice, and wondered why no-one wanted the bales - the reason being it's full of weeds, not only ragwort but just about every other nasty under the sun as well. 99% was weeds and only 1% grass!
 
I spot spray ours annually and pull any that I have missed. Hardly any this year, it's taken me 12 years to get to this stage. I also pull out any that I see on the lanes around us for about 2 miles in any direction. That is getting less also, which I feel must help the overall situation within the locality. I do suffer from OCRD (Obsessive, compulsive, ragwort disorder)
 
If you pull it put salt down the hole and it will prevent any off cuts growing.As a point of interest I had one sneaky little ****** appear outside my front door.Grew up in a big crown so I put a handful of salt on it and it withered and died but don't try this in the field as horses love the salt!
 
last summer i reported a horse to WHW as it was in a field full of ragwort,you could see nothing else. They went the same day and got a good response from the owner who temporarily removed the horse then removed the ragwort. i pass every day and still ok. Sadly a lot of people still seem ignorant.
 
We often find ragwort in out field (noticed some poking through this evening) so will need to pull them tomorrow. Never had this problem with previous yards but YOs kept on top of it by spraying fields. One horse is in a field full of the stuff :(
 
I spent about three days pulling it all last year then got it sprayed this year but none of it seems to have worked, it has come back tenfold and i've never seen it worse. There is only agri land around me not a single ragwort can be seen apart from in my field. Its terribly embarrassing! lol
 
I don't understand why people are saying pulling doesn't work. I have twelvish acres, few ragwort plants, pull each one by hand and never had one regrow in the same place.
 
Pulling does work, Ive been in my field 3 summers, first year was awful and I was pregnant, last year we got over 100 bags of rag, this year it is more 50, and hoping next year will be even less!
 
Often the ones that pop up in the same area are not from the roots but because a lot of seeds will land in the same area but each batch of seeds will germinate over a number of years - up to 20 years for ragwort. So you need to keep pulling & eventually you will get on top of it.
 
Pulling seems to have worked for me. i pulled loads last year, and so far this year, have found one plant, growing on the other side of one of my fences. There's plenty at the side of the roads round here, but none in my fields, which makes me very happy!
 
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