Thistles and Rushes

Fireside Solicitor

Have taken over a field - 25 acres - on rental for the next year with a long lease if I want it. Lad who owns it got it from his late dad and he is in Dublin now and no interest.

its not too bad nick but has a lot of creep thistle on one headland that he never did anything with and its taken over about 4 acres. rushes have started in the other headland but the land is dry type.

anyway I am not reseeding as too dear but plan to top plenty and graze the sh**e out of it with sheep and then lime it in september followed by plenty of manure. don't want to spend costs on spray if I can help it. any other ideas to get it back on track?

patsy_mccabe

Spray with MCPA. I tried licking thistles with MCPA but only so so results.

Fireside Solicitor

Forgot to say Yer man has a few bottles of forefront he said I can have for free. Is that any good or is the MCPA better? Heard the forefront was hard on the grass

Mooooo

If you may be leasing for a number of years I would reconsider reseeding. Esp as you have sheep they will be able to graze it off perfectly this year. You'll have more grass next year with a reseed properly managed than in the following 5 if you don't.

Peter90

Graze asap & then top, IMO spraying thistles is a waste, if you top before seed you will half the amount that grow next year, do the same next year you will eliminate them almost completely. Took over land with serious amount of thistles in 2016, handful of tjem around the 50 acres now. As for rushes top now and get somebody to weedlick in late sept/Oct should get a great kill on them using tjat method

ganmo

Top the thistles now before they seed.
I’ve had success with spraying thistles in the last few years

hopeso

As said, topping at the right time will get the thistles under control. It will probably take a couple of years, but you will see a huge improvement. Don't be afraid to spend on spray for the rushes...You already said you intend spending on fertiliser. You'll get no return from fertilising rushes... Use Mortone or MPCA. I don't think the Forefront is suitable for rushes, but it is expensive. If you could sell it to someone, it would pay for the Mortone.

_Brian

Fireside Solicitor wrote: »

Have taken over a field - 25 acres - on rental for the next year with a long lease if I want it. Lad who owns it got it from his late dad and he is in Dublin now and no interest.

its not too bad nick but has a lot of creep thistle on one headland that he never did anything with and its taken over about 4 acres. rushes have started in the other headland but the land is dry type.

anyway I am not reseeding as too dear but plan to top plenty and graze the sh**e out of it with sheep and then lime it in september followed by plenty of manure. don't want to spend costs on spray if I can help it. any other ideas to get it back on track?

Mcpa costs maybe €5 an acre to spray and will clear allot of your problem weeds in one run.

Fireside Solicitor

Thanks for the tips lads. Topped it today and have sheep on it now. Will get the MCPA during the week. Lad beside me has offered me his quad with a boon - I thought the MCPA was only for tractor spraying but he said for a few acres the quad will work grand and at least its free as I help him out with stuff. One neighbour next to my new field which is about 10 mile away from me said that the field was used for silage for years - it’s at the back of the farm and might well have been but we never seen it. Might explain the headlands. My brother in law has a sub soiler so we’re doing a job on it this week. Am sorted out at 10 year lease and will drive on then with the lime once I have those few jobs done and have a good bit of manure to go on it in the back end

The Rabbi

Thistles
Cut them in May,be back the next day.
Cut themin June,be back soon.
Cut them in July,they are sure to die.

riemann

_Brian wrote: »

Mcpa costs maybe €5 an acre to spray and will clear allot of your problem weeds in one run.

Any man spraying that I know of charges min 10 eur an acre.

Mcpa runs about 45eur for 10 litres, with an application rate of 3.3l/ha (that's from memory).

Licking of rushes with a quad is an alternative, 30eur an hour plus the cost of roundup. Can get 2/3 acres done per hour depending on land, access to water etc