> Does the horsenettle remain a problem in managed
> grazing system?
Hi,
Good grazing management doesn't help with horsenettle.
I certainly don't think that we should accept it and just
live with it. It's going to gradually get worse until it
takes over. But that will take a long time, maybe decades.
Mowing forces it into a low growth pattern but does nothing
to kill it.
Good graziers have more horsenettle than bad graziers
because they give it a better environment.
It is a perennial. It mostly spreads underground and so is
usually in continous patches in pastures and especially
no-till vegetable and crop fields.
So you might often have fairly big patches to work on.
Somewhat like islands in a sea of grass. That suggests
some strategy.
You might be able to do something about the "islands" but
probably not much about the individual plants scattered
between "islands".
It could be somewhat controlled by tillage.
For example, the patches(islands) could be disked up
repeatedly untill the horsenettle root reserves are
depleted. That might not kill it completely but it would
wound it enough so that it would be less of a problem for a
year or two.
But, tillage is sorta against what we are trying to achieve
with permanent pasture or no-till vegetables and field
crops.
You could try damaging it with RoundUp. I think this is
possibly the best solution available to graziers.
An application of RouldUp wouldn't be a 100% permanent
solution but it would help a lot for a couple of years.
You could try marking the parameter of the patches of
horsenettle with plastic marker flags. Then spray by
driving clockwise ,inside the fllags, in ever decreasing
circles. Don't use the left boom. Just spray with the
right boom.
The bluegrass/white clover should come back quickly (within
a year) from the natural seed bank. But to eliminate the
bare patch and get some grazing in the short run, I would
scratch it up a little and broadcast cereal rye.
Nothing is going to work real well. It's like a lot of
farming: Try to pick the best sub-satisfactory solution.
--
Kindest regards,
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F. W. Owen
Owenlea Holsteins
9430 Spencer Road
Homerville, Ohio 44235
e-mail fwo@bright.net
home page http://www.bright.net/~fwo
voice & fax 330.625.2369
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