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  Discussion on Death to FoxTail
Author Message
Member:
Goodie

Posted on Wednesday, Jul 14, 2004 - 10:20 pm:

OK, I have read the articles about Foxtail and have decided that although they are listed as a weed, weed killers don't kill grass which is what Foxtail is. HELP!!! I need to find a support group for Foxtail hunter adicts. I spend so much time in my pastures pulling the heads off my foxtail plants that my back forgot that I am an upright human. I have sprayed all my pastures w/weed killer and rotate and baby them. I spent months prepping them. Dragging, spraying, mowing, spraying, dragging and mowing again. I have one that I am still trying to save from extinction with success. I rotate the horses, mow when the grasses are over 8" and drag and clean the pastures monthly. I CAN NOT get rid of the Foxtail. It is a grass and is not responding to any standard weed/crab grass killer. I have one pasture that is very heavy in the "grass". I have spent hours with a lawn mower w/vacuum attachment and a lawn sweeper trying to get all the heads before they seed. This is a 4 acre pasture with almost an acre of it being "infested". Can anyone help me? This is a very important pasture as it is our broodmare pasture and has a very large shed. I have got to get this "grass" out of there. I am getting so tired of spending days and hours pulling the heads off of weeds/grass's. The rest of my pastures are controlable but this one is expanding.
HELP!!!
Member:
Canyon28

Posted on Thursday, Jul 15, 2004 - 8:59 am:

If the foxtail is in large patches, spray it with roundup and start over reseeding these areas when it is appropriate for you to reseed in your area. I also had a fairly large area, about 1/4 of an acre or so in size of foxtail in one of my pastures. I was also at my wits end, we had mowed it repeatedly, which does knock it back sinceit is an annual grass, but it kept coming back since I use ditch irrigation. The seeds come through the water, so I know I will never totally erradicate it, but now I just have a few plants, easily visible and I pull them up or dig them up as I see the heads developing. It will always be a constant battle, but it is very managable now. I have a 25 gal tank sprayer for my tractor and I sprayed the whole area with the foxtail with roundup. I would also follow directions and probably keep the horses off of that pasture for a few days. The roundup got rid of the foxtail and now I only have a few plants here and there that I can keep dug up or pulled up as needed. If you can get the area reseeded and keep the horses off of it for 3 or 4 months, the new grasses will also help choke out any remaining plants. Now I have some areas of whorling milkweed that Curtail will not touch. I also had some russian knapweed which is also very hard to kill. since these are very undesireable plants as far as pasture forage goes, if not sprayed they will multiply because the animals wont touch them. Russian knapweed also spreads by runners under the ground, as well as thousands of seeds per plant, so pulling is totally inappropriate and plowing(unless done every few weeks in a heavily infested area) will not help at all. canyonrimranch@aol.com
Member:
Canyon28

Posted on Thursday, Jul 15, 2004 - 9:05 am:

I forgot to say, that you must pull the plant up completely when the soil is moist, or dig the plant up, pulling or mowing the heads will not do the job. Once you dig each clump up, I would throw it in your tractor bucket and take it to another area to burn or compost. I was also able to rid my property of cockleburrs in this way. It was a big job, but I went out and pulled every plant up when I was watering that I could see and piled it up and burned it when they dried out. I do not have a single cockleburr now, once in a while a plant will come up, as these also float down the irrigation system, but they are easy to spot and pull. I was told the cockleburr seeds can also live in dry soils for up to ten years!
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Saturday, Jul 17, 2004 - 6:23 am:

Does your foxtail grow so low that mowing to 4 inches does not get the seed heads before they mature and produce seeds?
DrO
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