My husband has done a lot of research on this beast, and he read that plowing is one way to actually stop it from growing. Don't know how that works, since it seems to put other weed seeds into grow mode, but lots of information says it works. Supposedly, 3 consecutive years of burning also works really well, and should get rid of the seeds that have been waiting to spring into action. We don't want to wait three years to put the food plot in, so we're going to plow the one field and hope for the best. Mark did spray one very small area of the field with weed be gone, just to see if that would work, but timing is everything. Not sure if his timing was good, but there seemed to be way less this year than last year, in that small test area. It was only about a 3 X 3 foot area, and we really don't want to use any chemicals, but if that is the only way to get rid of the thistle, we'll probably do it. Mostly because it really hurts the dogs feet. Anything that hurts the dogs has to go.
We've kept the field cut really short too, which may be helping. But timing is everything on that as well.
So, that leaves the other field, which we may burn if we get up the nerve! You should have seen us freak out over the brush pile that we burned!
We were sure that we were going to set the county on fire, even though the ground was soaking wet!
It was actually pretty fun after we got over the panic, and now we don't hesitate to burn the brush that we cut. However, doing an entire field is really scary! We'll have to invite some real farmers over for help.
Early last year, a neighbor down the road plowed a massive field full of bunch grass, and planted wheat in it. We saw zero bunch grass come up in the wheat, so it isn't something that spreads after tilling. I don't know what the true name of the grass is, but everyone here calls it bunch grass, including the biologist at the DWR. It grows in large clumps. I'll try to get a picture of it so that you can see what I'm talking about. It is really common here, growing in every field that isn't under cultivation.
The latest thing that people have been using to control the thistle is a bug. We have a friend who tried them, and he said they made no difference at all. Maybe he didn't have enough of the bugs?
That would be something that we would love to try, but the bugs are in very short supply around here. We're on the waiting list to get some, but it could be a couple or more years. So for now, we're planning an attack without them.
