Burdock weeds.

Anyone have any advice on getting rid of burdock with using a herbicide? You cant seem to pull them out, cut them off they grow right back. Maybe water and salt sprayed on them? Thanks for any tips.

I looked it up on Google. Appears to be a broadleaf type of thistle.

Any good broadleaf herbicide should work on it. If you can go to a farm supply and purchase 2-4-D, it should do the trick. It might help to put a little surfactant with it, but not necessary.

24D drifts bad, so make sure not to spray as a mist, and only spray when it is calm. Set the sprayer to have low pressure, and large droplet sized spray, and spray right down on the plant to avoid overspray.

If you cant buy straight 24D, then you can use any of the lawn and garden varieties of "Weed-B-Gone" type stuff. The agricultural 24D would just be way cheaper and stronger/more concentrated than the stuff at Lowes and Home Depot.

Good luck, Gene

The problem is the owners don't want us to use any herbicide. So I need alternative methods.

Without using a herbicide? Herbicide has many options, 2-4-D the most common. Otherwise need to dig deep and remove most/all the root. If a small portion of the root still remains, salting it will finish the job. But just don't cut off the tops and expect salt to work miracles.

Then just don't tell him it's a chemical herbicide. Say you whipped up a batch of long expired Utica Club and extra spicy Michigan sauce... I'd believe it would kill weeds...

Take a gallon of white vinegar,add one cup of table salt and one cup of liquid detergent. This will kill vegetation,but if you really want to beef it up,buy a container of "Weed Be Gone" and dump it into your recipe,it will work well!,kills grass as well as broad leafs.

Ummmm......You didnt hear this from me, but....

Waste oil might work, or diesel fuel.

Imagine a big dandelion, They require physical removal (at last 70% of tap root) or herbicide. A tile spade or narrower shovel will do it but lots of PT and some grow back. Jim

Goats and sheep LOVE burdock.

Good ol roundup at the right time. Most thistles at full bloom will kill the roots. Much safer than 2 4 d imho. 2 4 D will give cancer and roundup no I think

I had a few weeds that were very tough to kill with herbicide. I placed a bucket over them and in a few weeks they starved from lack of sunlight.

You mention using water and salt. The active ingredient in Roundup is a salt. So feel free to use roundup and tell the owner you used salt... which technically you are not lying.

If you want to use regular salt, it would work, look at your roadsides in the spring. I use salt on my baitpiles, it kills the vegetation approximately in a 4 foot circle.

Rick

Depends on where the burdock is located, but I have had good results by clipping and liming. Burdock is a result of chemical farming and low soil calcium. Restoring fertility to previously abused acreage is often a difficult task and cannot be achieved easily. I have selectively used roundup with some success, in places where a manure pile was located, but like you the owners of my various leased properties objected to chemicals.. so I used the time worn approach.. lime... lots of it... and used my bush hog... works. Actually, if the property can be pastured.. lime and cattle will do the job as well... burdock or thistle. In our modern culture it's often easier to take a pill rather than do the research and understand the root cause...

Burdock

diagnostics.montana.edu/Plant/Topics/WEEDS002.HTM

The leaves on burdock plants are some of the largest you are likely to find, getting as large as 12 or 14 inches across. They are dark green, dull, and more or less heart-shaped. The plants vary in height from 1.5 feet to 10 feet tall. Flowers are small, lavender or pink, and similar in shape to thistle blossoms. In the fall, burdock plants produce burs about one inch in diameter.
Fortunately, burdock plants are quite easy to control because they reproduce only by seed, and take two years to become mature plants. The first year, low-growing plants called rosettes are produced from seed. To control the plants at this point, an application of herbicide is probably easier than digging out the deep taproot. Several good herbicides for this purpose include Safer's Superfast Weed Killer, Finale, and Roundup. Superfast Weed Killer is simply a highly refined soap; it will kill only portions of the plant with which it comes in contact and will not translocate into the roots. If you use Superfast, apply it only to the pest plant because it will damage grasses and desirable plants also. Check the plant periodically in case regrowth is occurring from the roots. Finale is a synthetic herbicide derived from naturally-occurring bacterium, in a water base (no petroleum), low mammalian toxicity. Roundup is also a relatively safe herbicide, for both humans and the environment, when used as directed. Roundup will move down into root systems. After application, it does not move in the soil and it breaks down quickly. However, like Superfast, it will kill any plant it comes in contact with, including grass, trees, and shrubs. Products containing the herbicide 2,4-D can also be used to manage burdock. Spot application of these herbicides can prevent damage to desirable plants. Herbicide control of burdock is most effective on the first-year rosettes. To control mature plants, cut them down before flowers and burs are formed. This will prevent new seeds from being produced.

"Roundup is also a relatively safe herbicide, for both humans and the environment, when used as directed. Roundup will move down into root systems. After application, it does not move in the soil and it breaks down quickly. However, like Superfast, it will kill any plant it comes in contact with, including grass, trees, and shrubs."

The above statement is patently false. Much research has uncovered the unfortunate fact that there are residual implications to the prolonged use of Roundup. But then you would have to be a reader of information provided by other than the manufacturer or their apologists in the land grant ag colleges.... I have reclaimed land that has previously been abused by roundup... it was not a pretty site... no earthworms.. no gulls .. no biological life... so don't try to sell this old organic farmer a pile of ... well lets just say "crap"...

The active ingredient is not table salt. It is a glysine phosphate. It can be called a "salt", because it will dissolve in water. Table salt, sodium chloride, is toxic to plants at some level, but has no chemical relationship to roundup.

Long ago, and not too far away, I had a organic chemistry class....

I put black plastic over a bunch of them and the plastic is pushed up, I guess there still growing. I thought that would kill them with no light.

We have always just cut them off with a shovel, and then salted the stump. Sometimes it might take a second treatment. It won't cost much to try.

Thanks Bruce, that's what I wanna try doing. I wonder if the salt will hurt the soil any??

Spook,

Here is what I was going by...

"The active ingredient of Roundup is the isopropylamine salt of glyphosate. Glyphosate is an acid molecule, but it is formulated as a salt for packaging and handling"

I have a recipe I picked up somewhere a while back that is a generic roundup recipe. Salt, vinegar and water, dont remember the ratios.

Any questions like this I have to ask the wife, she"s the smart one (bio-chemist).

a little 2-4d like LV6 will kill it and won't kill the grass like roundup

most burdock around here grows in the trees so tell me how chemical farming has anything to do with burdock growth

I dig it out with as much of the root as I can get, salt the hole and
fill the hole in. Seems to work best in the spring when the plant is young.

Just think about it like this, there is a lot of salt in fretilizer right?

Same here only burdock around the trees and close to trees in areas not being farmed. Great grandfather and grandfather had Merino sheep. Burdock was a bane with the long wooled sheep. Both always carried a spade around when walking the pastures viewing the sheep to dispach any surviving burdock; no chemical herbicides. They were introduced (2-4-D) a few years before my grandfather passed.