Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 19:09:02 +0000
From: Sam Groce
Subject: FW: any suggestions for horse nettle?
Cindy:
Al forwarded your message to me. If it’s classified as a lawn Al typically handles those, if it’s classified as a pasture I typically handle those.
Horsenettle or “Solanum carolinense” is a perennial that spreads by rhizomes that can grow to a height of 3 feet. All parts of the plant except for that of the fruit is poisonous but is rarely eaten because of the thorns. You asked if “routinely” mowing for a season would rid you of horsenettle…probably not. Maintaining your hay field like that of a lawn for 2 – 3 growing seasons would more than likely eliminate most of the horsenettle plants for a while. But eventually wind, rain, birds, etc. would bring seeds back into the field or those seeds that have being laying dormant for 5 years may just decide now is the time to germinate.
There are 2 chemistries of herbicides that will eliminate horsenettle. Grazon P&D (r) (a restricted use product) or GrazonNext(r). Both of these products do have a residual action which makes them the only chemistries that we know of that will eliminate horsenettle. If you do not have an applicators license you would need to have a commercial pesticide applicator to apply the Grazon P&D(r) for you. Since you are selling hay this would be the product that you would have to use, but at the same time you would be required to make all the buyers of the hay aware of the product that you used and tell them that they should not use any of the manure from animals fed this hay as compost in an area where broadleaf plants would be grown. The residual that makes the product work so well also allows it to carry through the manure of the animal. The chemistry of the herbicide does no harm to the animal as it passes through the digestive system.
I don’t know what size of hay field that you are talking about here, but if you put a pencil to it and calculate the amount of gas or diesel fuel that you will burn in keeping the field cut, the wear and tear on the machinery (assuming that you have already purchased the machinery needed to keep a large area mowed that close and frequently), your time, the compaction to the soil of running heavy equipment over it weekly to biweekly, to the carbon monoxide from the burning of the fuel; the cost and environmental impact may be less by having someone to spray a herbicide once a year for a couple of years than trying to control it mechanically.
This is the producer’s call since there are options.
Sincerely,
Sam Groce
Samuel E. Groce
County Extension Director
Administration, Community & Rural Development, Livestock & Forages
Chatham County Center, NC Cooperative Extension
North Carolina State University
Post Office Box 279
Pittsboro, NC 27312
Office 919-542-8202
webpage: http://chatham.ces.ncsu.edu/
e-mail: <mailto:>