Getting rid of blackberry bushes.

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I made a weed burner. Not hard to do with stuff many of us have laying around.

Buddy has a lot of huge patches of them and just mows over them.
He has used his bad boy mower and his brush hog sometimes.

I needed a path cleared 500 yards across a field to do some shooting and No brush hog and too wet for the mower.
I took my tweaked Geo Metro and hooked hog panel to the hitch and put heavy tires on the panel and drove across the field a few times and it mashed and pulled up a lot of stuff.

You could possibly do something like that on the cheap if you have to.
 
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Rubus armeniacus
Non native and invasive.
This patch is up to 9' high places.
Brush hog the edge and work your way in.
This plant is a tough adversary.
Screenshot_20230224_092146_Maps.jpg
 
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The first spring after moving into our house in Idaho the blackberries started to bloom.

Us: "Awesome! We've got blackberries!"

And that variety produced an unusually large berry that was really good. But there's only so many you can eat, freeze, cook, etc... After living thru a spring and summer growing season with Himalayan blackberries...

Us: "F**K! How can we kill these damn things?"

They grew so fast and so thick you could almost watch the vines creep across the lawn. One winter I burned about 500 sq ft of dormant and dead vines down to the rocks/dirt. By next summer they were back thicker than ever. We had 10 acres there. I'm guessing there was at least 1.5 - 2 acres covered with blackberries. It was a full-time job trying to keep them at a manageable level.

I burned them, poisoned them, yanked them out of the ground with my tractor...nothing worked.

This is a picture after I installed a Piranha Bar on the bucket:

A.jpg
 

HillsideDesolate

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Best advice: Goats followed by grubbing them out at the roots. Followed by sheet mulch. Followed by planting trees to shade them out. This is what we would use for Forrest restoration in the PNW. They germinate in bare disturbed soil so if you grub them out and don't mulch you wind up with more of them.

Himalayan black berries laugh at herbicide.
The first spring after moving into our house in Idaho the blackberries started to bloom.

Us: "Awesome! We've got blackberries!"

And that variety produced an unusually large berry that was really good. But there's only so many you can eat, freeze, cook, etc... After living thru a spring and summer growing season with Himalayan blackberries...

Us: "F**K! How can we kill these damn things?"
This story happens to every new Northwesterner.

I am actually a little happy they live in OK, feels A bit nostalgic.

Fun fact: the Himalayan Blackberry that strangle a the northwest all go back to a single specimen brought in by botanist Luther Burbank. All commercial blackberries have Himalayan Blackberry in their linage
 
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Best advice: Goats followed by grubbing them out at the roots. Followed by sheet mulch. Followed by planting trees to shade them out. This is what we would use for Forrest restoration in the PNW. They germinate in bare disturbed soil so if you grub them out and don't mulch you wind up with more of them.

Himalayan black berries laugh at herbicide.

This story happens to every new Northwesterner.

I am actually a little happy they live in OK, feels A bit nostalgic.

Fun fact: the Himalayan Blackberry that strangle a the northwest all go back to a single specimen brought in by botanist Luther Burbank. All commercial blackberries have Himalayan Blackberry in their linage
A two front war. Blackberry from the NW and Kudsu from the SE
 
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Best advice: Goats followed by grubbing them out at the roots...

We contemplated goats but never got them while there. I was always amazed at how goats could eat those vines since the thorns are like razor wire.

Himalayan black berries laugh at herbicide.

Fact... Round-Up sure didn't seem to bother them at all. I once used it and the only thing I noticed was some of the leaves turned a little brown where I'd sprayed it...but the vines continued to grow and produce.

They sure were good berries, though. I cringe when I see blackberries for sale in the grocery stores for $4 to $5 a pint.

Between those wild blackberries in the PNW and zucchini plants I can't believe there's a hunger problem in parts of the world. If Jesus had planted one zucchini plant He could've fed a lot more than 5000...
 

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