Russian Thistle "tumble weeds" - Part II

Some may recall my post from last fall about how to deal with Russian Thistle (RT) or commonly known as what we think of in old Westerns, tumble weeds.

My father passed away in January 2017 and the field at the farm in western Montana didn't get planted last year. A nice crop of RT decided to volunteer to fill the void. It did a good job of it!

I went out last fall to prep the field for this spring. About 1/3 was covered with RT and since it was still alive, the equipment I had available at the farm didn't deal with the situation. Some of the plants were about the size of a kitchen table and tough/woody suckers! The plow would just plug up and the disk would just either roll over the top or drag several together before forming a pile. What a mess. I worked about half of the area covered with RT and then gave up. Ran out of time and hoped to have better luck this spring. Here's what the field looked like early this spring, not good.



Well I did some reading and RT is an annual plant, so my hope was that it would die over the winter and something could be done with it. We went to the farm last week and had some ideas but didn't know what would work. Thought pushing them together into piles with the loader and some tines welded on to the bucket. That proved to be futile.

Plan B. We started to pile them up with pitch forks and burn them. That worked but to do about 7 acres would have taken awhile.

Plan C. Went down to the shed and hooked up the rollbar rake. Bingo!! Rolled them into windrows and walked the rows with a propane torch.



Some of the flames got pretty big!



The RT burned hot and clean. Travis (my niece's husband) would light the piles and I'd walk behind and flip in the edges to finish. Just left ashes behind. We couldn't have been any happier! I'm the gray bearded dude on the left. Don't ask me why I'm so dirty and how Travis stayed so clean!



This is what the field looked like after disking. My sister Michelle ran the camera in between helping out and bringing us "field lunch". Just needed to drag and then plant oats. I'll make a post about that next. Thanks for reading!!

Good thinking and good job! Congrats!

That's quite the transformation! Thanks for the pics and how you were able to "conquer the beast".

Great job, that's a wonderful improvement.

When I tried to do that in NM, the wind would come up, and I would chase them putting out the fires.

All I can see are billions of seeds sprouting shortly after you work the land.

turned out looking real good matt, considering the mess you started with. I think the fire should have also taken care of most of the seeds, but like any weed they'll be back :lol:

(quoted from post at 19:14:33 04/30/18) All I can see are billions of seeds sprouting shortly after you work the land.

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We were cutting wheat in southwest Kansas in a field that had tumbleweed streaks through it. The farmer we were cutting for wasn’t too happy about the adjoining neighbor who let them grow and roll across the his field, sowing seeds in streaks as they rolled.

The thisle seeds I put out for finches in winter must be pre-nuked because they never sprout. But we do get tumble weeds rolling in out here in west Texas.

(quoted from post at 19:14:33 04/30/18) All I can see are billions of seeds sprouting shortly after you work the land.

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I get that but I didn't see any other option. Most of the area that the tumble weeds was growing on, I plowed under before disking/dragging. You can also see a good stand of quack grass started so it went under the plow. I didn't like that option because that sandy clay gets extremely soft after plowing but that's what I felt like I had to do. So hopefully most of the new seeds are 6" under now.

I don't have enough experience with working that soil, I'm just an environmental project manager who gets to play with toys in the dirt once in awhile. I left the farm in 1992. But I'm learning as I go and hope to remember some of the things Dad talked about. Next year will be different.

I think the oats gets up faster then the Russian thistle and crowds it out or at least keeps it at bay. I remember seeing small weed plants about 6-10" tall but I didn't know what they were when I did fall plowing a couple years ago. Now looking back, they were tumble weeds that didn't get that big due to the oats on the field until mid-summer. I think the thistle starts to grow with a little more soil warmth so hopefully the oats gets going quicker. I'll know more this July when I cut most of the oats for hay. Anyways, I was satisfied with the field prep as I could be for what I started with.

Just an update, we have green in the field!



A family friend who lives close to the farm in Montana was driving by and stopped to get a picture of the oats coming up in the field. He stopped along I-90 for the shot. I'm sure we are the talk of the town now since all of the locals have to drive by the field on the way to the larger nearby towns.

So evidently the four year old oat seed was just fine and we managed to not miss too much with our 6-foot grain drill. The elk are enjoying it also but Denley said two elk have been hit on I-90 leaving the field in the last three days. The elk usually stay in the wooded area to the east of the field so there must be a big group grazing on the field if they don't want to use the woods. The turkey have been in the field also, another person asked if he could hunt over the field. We had to decline that since we aren't around the property right now.

Hopefully the necessary rain keeps coming and we have a good stand to mow in July.

That's a beautiful area, and a job well done.