First OT - Slaying Blackberries in the South

Got some much needed seat time with some bushhogging last weekend. Background: I cleared about 9 acres of hardwoods about two years ago and followed up with stump removal in our Georgia red clay soils. Going very native and natural with this property so my Dad and I planted about 8 acres of Little Bluestem (for the wildlife) and an acre of wildflowers (Dad says it's for my wife). Little Bluestem is a lot like Broome Sedge but is a bit more colorful. It is in its second summer of growth and seems to be doing pretty well and I think will ultimately fill in the bare spots. The blackberries do pretty well on this property too and some bushes in their second year were over 6 feet in height. So last weekend I wacked those down the blackberries on the 8 acres and just cut the tops of the Little Blue. I was in a hurry because of some Ford tractor and pto shaft failures that still need to be resolved so I didn't even take time to change my shorts to jeans. Blackberries did a number on my shins.

So here's my question for you guys with similar experience. What has been your experience with the best way to eradicate these blackberries? Will they lose the battle if I keep up the bushhogging? I understand the Little Blue is pretty hardy and it seems to be doing well. Am I going to have to use chemicals to win the war?

Thanks Rick
 
canes last for 2 years.

you need to cut them before fruit ripens. IE.. when they start going to seed, flowering and preferably just before hard green berries start forming.

the plant goes under tremendous resource strain to flower and fruit. cutting it when it has made the investment, but before it has viable fruit and seeds. robs it of the latent seeds it drops and animals carry. do this a couple years in a row and you will start geometrically cutting down on the number of plants you see.

keep inmind you will have latent seed in the soil for a bit, and will get animal seeding from adjacent land if they are present near you.
 
Goats!!!!! I learned years ago if you want a place cleared and want to do it the easy way a few goats will take care of it pretty fast. Had an area here on my place that has a couple old tractor and equipment in it that you could not see and I turned the goats out in the area and low and behold you can not see every thing that is in that area
 
If its the same species here, mowing them seems to be effective. I've had strips of them along areas near fields that are not useable for crops or what have you, one was a bit steep, so I'd skip the area, blackberries took over. I like all the edible wild berries too, but I got in there and cut that strip back and regretted it later. Seems the following year or so, golden rod took it over, it was all berry canes prior. I had a nice long producing group of canes coming out from under my older D7 caterpillar blade, last year. I picked and enjoyed those to no end, this year its all dead, though there are other newer canes nearby, this one died on its own. I think you can prune these at certain times to care for them, but they don't seem hard to kill off either. Those berries were good, I had been rehabbing of all things a crow with some white feathers, I think he got the boot for being odd or some natural defect, the family has nested nearby for years now. I'd bring him to pick his own berries, we both made good on these blackberries that came up last season, and I thought I'd get another season or growth off it, but that is not the case.
 
Looks to me like the only thing you have that is natural native is the black berries.

Zane
 

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