BSK
Well-Known Member
Although I have considerable experience with herbicide use for hack-and-squirt Timber Stand Improvement projects, I have very little experience with large-scale use of foliar application herbicides to knock back hardwood/broadleaf saplings. Anyone have any recommendations for the best herbicides for backpack-sprayer applications to knock these saplings back, as well as timing?
What I'm trying to accomplish is to prevent patches of heavily thinned timber from regenerating into hardwood forest. In the areas where timber was cut the hardest (leaving few if any trees standing), I would like to keep the habitat in the earliest stages of regeneration, when the sites are dominated by tall-grasses and annual weeds. To do this, I'll have to kill all of the hardwood saplings that will rapidly fill these areas. I realize fire is probably the most biologically sound way of accomplishing this but considering the patchiness of the areas I would like to work with, the incredible steepness of the terrain (many areas exceeding a 45-degree slope), and the inability to put crews and equipment together to run a proper fire, I would like to attempt simply spraying the areas in question with a backpack sprayer and see what can be produced.
I've noticed the TVA is now backpack spot-spraying the power-line right-of-ways instead of mowing, and the habitat produced is phenomenally productive for wildlife. I would like to produce patches of similar habitat.
What I'm trying to accomplish is to prevent patches of heavily thinned timber from regenerating into hardwood forest. In the areas where timber was cut the hardest (leaving few if any trees standing), I would like to keep the habitat in the earliest stages of regeneration, when the sites are dominated by tall-grasses and annual weeds. To do this, I'll have to kill all of the hardwood saplings that will rapidly fill these areas. I realize fire is probably the most biologically sound way of accomplishing this but considering the patchiness of the areas I would like to work with, the incredible steepness of the terrain (many areas exceeding a 45-degree slope), and the inability to put crews and equipment together to run a proper fire, I would like to attempt simply spraying the areas in question with a backpack sprayer and see what can be produced.
I've noticed the TVA is now backpack spot-spraying the power-line right-of-ways instead of mowing, and the habitat produced is phenomenally productive for wildlife. I would like to produce patches of similar habitat.
