I asked a question awhile ago about star thistle and it doesn't look like I am going to be able to control it at this point. Yellow star thistle has taken over in my part of Northern Ca. and is unstoppable! I have several pastures that we usually use for grazing by they are all filled with the annoying toxic plant. I have never had a horse that ate it before but my TB does! I feel horrible because they have gotten thier current pasture down to dust and I want to turn them out into another. Has anyone dealt with this? Advice?
Answers:
The only advice I can give is what I had to do...I live in Central Ca. where last year thats all that was in my pastures due to a neighbor tilling all his thistle my way...Round up straight does kill it but on that many acres almost impossible!! My foals started eating it and I had to borrow and purchase some goats. I know this may not be feasible but we had to make it work and a herd of goats can clean out a field rather quickly thats all they need to eat, its like candy to them they love it and the BEST part is they eat the seeds that fall from the thistle. 1 thistle releases thousands of little seeds that grow quit well!! We tried everything to get rid of the star thistle and you can't mow it because then the seeds go everywhere. I can say this year we have very minimal star thistle plants in the pastures and I corraled the goats in those certain areas so maybe next year it will be completely GONE!! If there is anyway for you to find someone that has goats you can run on your pastures it is a sure fire way to get rid of them and it won't seed itself back for next year. The only other way is Round up before it seeds since it won't kill the seeds and a large sprayer or tractor with sprayer.
hell if i know
im sorry, i think you should, get a tractor to churn the dirt
(and grass) (and put the horses in another pen where they will stay for a while) then plow or pick up dirt (with tractor) and put it in the backyard or if there is a big grass land around you than dump there, then buy sod (rolls of grass) at a garden store or plant place and lay down rolls of sod and leave horses in other pens untill the sod is in ground, or else your horse will be pulling up the new grass, and if that plan wont work out for you than im sorry, get back to me pony_lovr@yahoo.com
Star thistle is a very hard plant to control. It might take a while but I would go with the goats or find someone with a mule or donkey. They will eat thistle and cacti. Plowing under doesn't work. I know in California they used to allow controlled burns. If it is safe to do this I would think about doing that. It will put nutrients back into the soil and when you reseed it you'll get some nice grass.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment