Hemlock control

[BenAdamsAgri]

How are people successfully controlling hemlock here.
Last year spot sprayed it all with glyphosate and now it’s all come back in the same places.
Any ideas? Not sure I fancy digging a two foot root out for every plant

 

[milkloss]

What sort of hogweed is it? We have poison hemlock giant hogweed and water dropwort none of which are particularly easy to control because they grow near water. I find glypho will only clear a patch which will encourage new plants to grow in their place.

 

[ewald]

Don't some of the specialists inject glyphosate directly into the stem?

 

[Breakthru]

Full ppe and chop off the stem and pour bleach down it.

 

[Princess Pooper]

How are people successfully controlling hemlock here.
Last year spot sprayed it all with glyphosate and now it’s all come back in the same places.
Any ideas? Not sure I fancy digging a two foot root out for every plant

It's an absolute b*gger. We have used grazon which does kill hemlock but - if it's growing in grass, then the grass survives and leaves less bare soil than with glyphosate for more hemlock seeds to germinate.

It's probably not the same plant that is growing back when you have sprayed, just more seed geminated in the bare ground.

Before now when it got ahead of us we cut the seeding stems and then burned them just to reduce seed spread. So many farmers do not recognise it and unfortunately the reduction in verge mowing has allowed it to thrive.

 

[Princess Pooper]

What sort of hogweed is it? We have poison hemlock giant hogweed and water dropwort none of which are particularly easy to control because they grow near water. I find glypho will only clear a patch which will encourage new plants to grow in their place.

Hemlock is not hogweed. Hemlock looks like cow parsley but is taller, flowers later and most distinctively has purple spots in its stems. It is also different from water hemlock and is happy growing on a road verge and in a grassland field with no preference for watery areas.

 

[TheTallGuy]

It takes a few years to get on top of hemlock because of the seedbank in the soil. Advice I was given a while ago was to either spray it early with a hormonal, or later on with glypho - just don't let it go to seed if it flowers. Other option is to just keep cutting it as it is a biennial & eventually you'll stop it!

 

[Flat 10]

It’s poxy stuff, never saw it as a kid now it’s everywhere. I reckon it spreads very effectively by seeds on mowing equipment. Takes a while to control with round up

 

[Tealo]

Have many had problems with it making cattle ill?

 

[Brisel]

Have many had problems with it making cattle ill?

I had a grazier claim it killed a couple of his heifers, but the field in question had a river running through it and wasn't overgrazed, so I can't see why they would touch it. The same block of land has Red Water & the cattle died the first year he didn't vaccinate against it.

 

[BenAdamsAgri]

After talking to a couple people on twitter some have advised to use 2-4D, so we've been using the product kyleo in the knapsack, for anyone wondering, will see how it goes

 

[Flat 10]

After talking to a couple people on twitter some have advised to use 2-4D, so we've been using the product kyleo in the knapsack, for anyone wondering, will see how it goes

How did the 2,4 d work?

 

[Barleymow]

Blade on strimmer before it flower's, usually do a bit if I'm awake from 5am cool then too

 

[milkloss]

Blade on strimmer before it flower's, usually do a bit if I'm awake from 5am cool then too

Do you wear a spacesuit or something? Evil stuff.

 

[Barleymow]

Do you wear a spacesuit or something? Evil stuff.

Spray suite rubber gloves and visor

 

[suffolksmallholder]

Hemlock is not hogweed. Hemlock looks like cow parsley but is taller, flowers later and most distinctively has purple spots in its stems. It is also different from water hemlock and is happy growing on a road verge and in a grassland field with no preference for watery areas.

It pops up in our yard from time to time.
SS

 

[Goweresque]

I've found Thrust herbicide works well, I think its the dicamba in it that deals with it. Thrust is Ok for knapsacks too. I've also found that you can dig the tap root out quite easily if you loosen the soil around it with a fork, they come up quite easily then. I've got one or two patches that I've been treating for a few years now, its slowly reducing. You just have to keep at it each year and make sure it doesn't go to seed.

 

[deleted user 837354]

I wouldn't strim it. The last time I did an unusual strimming job I got plastered in plant juice and bits and for about 3 months I had brown spots where I had obviously strimmed something and had a Phyto-photosensitisation reaction.

Grazon type product through knapsack will sort it. That triclopyr goes to the roots nicely which is why it is used in stump and brush killer. Thrust is also worth a look.

 

[crashbox]

Have many had problems with it making cattle ill?

Not I'll, dead.

The roots are more poisonous than the leaves.

It likes the same wet spots and comes back. Individual plants are biennials.

Two tips:
- Make sure there is good water supply so cattle don't treat the roots up when going into ditches/streams/rivers to drink.

- Where practical, fence cattle off it (e.g. a strand of high tensile wire a metre or two away from the ditch where the hemlock grows).

EDIT: we refer to it locally as Water Dropwort

 

[Danllan]

Hemlock is not hogweed. Hemlock looks like cow parsley but is taller, flowers later and most distinctively has purple spots in its stems. It is also different from water hemlock and is happy growing on a road verge and in a grassland field with no preference for watery areas.

It also lacks the ribs / corrugations on the stems that other umbellifers have.