I had mares tails in my previous garden (no I did not move to France to escape it!). Luckily it was not the infestation some of you seem to have. My solution for a few stems was a little like that of our engineer friend and his plastic pipes but I used poly bags. I crushed the stems wearing a rubber glove liberally coated with glyphosphate mixed with dishwashing gel, then put a poly bag over the stem and secured it closed with a twistum at the base of the stem. It was then left for several weeks. I had no regrowth.
I have an allotment where I have been doing battle with mares tail for years and it's a real problem. Having watched a video I learned that if you follow the old wives tale about knocking the mares tail about to open it up before spraying weed killer you spread it, the guy in the video explained that every bit of broken mares tail falling on bare soil will re grow, the same if you have it in grass and mow it, the mares tail will spread. Last year in desparation I tried Kurtail Gold weed killer, which in the promo video more or less said it killed mares tail to the roots.....it does'nt and after I e mailed them they replied and said in not so many words that their product was not the miracle cure the video led you to believe. Having followed their instructions to the letter in initial treatment of Kurtail, leaving the soil and dead tops alone and spot spraying any new growth that shows. I did this all last summer and left the ground unworked, this summer part of my allotment is lush green with the stuff, it's that dense. I had one victory with mares tail on another part of my allotment on a much smaller area, but believe me it's a lot of work, I dug out all the infected top soil going aout 3 spits down to the clay sub soil, all of the infected top soil was taken away and desposed of. I was left with what could only be described as a pit, other allotment holders asked if I was digging a fish pond. Next I bought several large tubs of rock salt and layered the inside of this pit leaving it well alone for 12 months, the roots exposed to the salt and winter ground frost did not produce anymore mares tail. I then bought fresh top soil and filled the area back in with no more problems. This time around I think I will need a large skip for the infected soil to go in and I will spray with Kurtail before the big dig and allow it to kill the top of the mares tail as this will reduce the chance of any bits of live top being dropped on other parts of the allotment during the soil removal. It is going to be a huge long term job but the one thing that I have learned and that is there is no quick fix to get rid of mares tail.
I have a five acre field and since moving here 20 years ago have been occupied in eradicating just about every type of thistle, plus ragwort, willow herb of various types, couch grass and among other weeds a very large infestation of mares tail in order to establish a wild flower meadow. I tried running the tractor over it to crush it but that did not work. Glyphosate will not work as the shoots have a silica 'skin' through which glyphosate will not penetrate. Kurtail was very expensive and not very successful so I have since used Ammonium Sulphamate, in a 15 litre back pack sprayer firstly broadcast over the extensive mat which reduced the growth for the following year after which I spotted each shoot as it appeared. A problem with Ammonium Sulphamate is that it rots brass and steel very quickly so any implements and sprayer components must be either stainless steel or plastic. This exercise had taken over ten years and has cleared about 2 acres. A major problem is that the weed is often difficult to detect in grass or other weeds so it is imperative to treat the whole area with glyphosate after which the 'pesky' weed can be easily seen. The last few days I have been spraying another large area with glyphosate to kill weeds but also in an effort to treat the vast amount of now appearing female spore shoots which will hopefully take the weed killer into the rhizomes and then kill the whole thing. This weed is a survivor, as it has been around since the time of the dinosaurs with the roots extending into the ground to about 4 feet, any digging will only increase its spread just like Japanese knotweed as it will regenerate from a very small piece. To eradicate this menace from a large area needs a lot of hard physical work, expensive weed killer and considerable time.
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I had mares tails in my previous garden (no I did not move to France to escape it!). Luckily it was not the infestation some of you seem to have. My solution for a few stems was a little like that of our engineer friend and his plastic pipes but I used poly bags. I crushed the stems wearing a rubber glove liberally coated with glyphosphate mixed with dishwashing gel, then put a poly bag over the stem and secured it closed with a twistum at the base of the stem. It was then left for several weeks. I had no regrowth.
I have an allotment where I have been doing battle with mares tail for years and it's a real problem. Having watched a video I learned that if you follow the old wives tale about knocking the mares tail about to open it up before spraying weed killer you spread it, the guy in the video explained that every bit of broken mares tail falling on bare soil will re grow, the same if you have it in grass and mow it, the mares tail will spread. Last year in desparation I tried Kurtail Gold weed killer, which in the promo video more or less said it killed mares tail to the roots.....it does'nt and after I e mailed them they replied and said in not so many words that their product was not the miracle cure the video led you to believe. Having followed their instructions to the letter in initial treatment of Kurtail, leaving the soil and dead tops alone and spot spraying any new growth that shows. I did this all last summer and left the ground unworked, this summer part of my allotment is lush green with the stuff, it's that dense. I had one victory with mares tail on another part of my allotment on a much smaller area, but believe me it's a lot of work, I dug out all the infected top soil going aout 3 spits down to the clay sub soil, all of the infected top soil was taken away and desposed of. I was left with what could only be described as a pit, other allotment holders asked if I was digging a fish pond. Next I bought several large tubs of rock salt and layered the inside of this pit leaving it well alone for 12 months, the roots exposed to the salt and winter ground frost did not produce anymore mares tail. I then bought fresh top soil and filled the area back in with no more problems. This time around I think I will need a large skip for the infected soil to go in and I will spray with Kurtail before the big dig and allow it to kill the top of the mares tail as this will reduce the chance of any bits of live top being dropped on other parts of the allotment during the soil removal. It is going to be a huge long term job but the one thing that I have learned and that is there is no quick fix to get rid of mares tail.
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