OK, so im going to bite the bullet and try to control a little mesquite on about 10 acres. Reclaim seems to be WAY more than i want to pay....230 bucks a gallon. Remedy is about 80 a gallon. Does anyone have any experience using another herbicide on mesquite? So far, ive been shredding the hell out of it, and it doesnt get more than 1 foot tall before i hit it again, but sometimes i can't always do that, and shredding it pisses it off. I know MIXING remedy and reclaim has good results, but the price of reclaim is too high for me.

So, Is remedy the best bet now or is there a more economical herbicide that works well? I can use roundup on the small ones, and it works pretty good, but the big ones i need more power.

You need to use a cocktail of Remedy/Reclaim. Roundup and shredding is just a waste of time.

You realize that the gallon of chemicals are diluted? You use 1/2% of each, mixed with water.

Just buy the chemicals. You'll end up with about ten times more than you need. Just spray really heavily and repeat next year on the trees that need another application.

Even if you use all the chemicals, you'll spend about $35/acre. That's nothing.

Jed--We sprayed the Reclaim/Remedy mix all summer with excellent results...at least they look dead ! It is the mix that Brushbusters recommends--I would stick to it.

Shredding it does more than piss it off. It makes the root system much stronger where it is really harder to kill with chemical If you want it gone man up buy the chemical and get after it. Grazon will burn it back pretty good if it is not too big and a yearly application will get you more grass (less weeds) and eventually kill the mesquite and huiscache. It will not kill trees but small bushes it works pretty well on. Brush control is not a one time thing...

If you want to spot treat by hand, which may or may not be doable on your 10 acres depending on the mesquite density, you can mix 4 oz of remedy to a gallon of diesel and hit each individual plant. If they are under a foot tall you should get a pretty good kill on them.

Or you could put a dozen goats on the place and they will keep the mesquite shorter than you can shred it and you will have the makings of a fine 4th of July barbecue every year.

Wow. Where to start ..... Remedy/diesel mix is great as a streamline basal or cut stump treatment. Since you have shredded it and created multi-stemmed monsters, stem treatments are difficult, at best. To top it off, the stem/canopy : root ratio is now out of whack. DO NOT TOUCH THE MESQUITE FOR AT LEAST 2 YEARS in order to let things get back in line. Then use Remedy-Reclaim mix by the foliar spray method.

To add to B1-83, when you mow off mesquites they send out runners on top of the ground. To effectively kill them using a basal spray, you have to get all of the runners. You may find next year that one runner is still going strong. It's hard to do, especially when you have grass.

You may also ask your local custom fertilizer/sprayer if they have a mixture they recommend. A cocktail of 1 qt P+D and 4 oz. Reclaim per acre as a foliar spray can be effective at knocking back mesquites if you do it every two years, but it won't kill many of them. The kicker is that you have to do it in June when the mesquites have enough leaves to absorb the spray, and once you spray them you generally have to do it every other year to ensure that the regrowth has enough leaves to absorb the chemical.

Basal spray is the most effective. It is also the most difficult.

My family has several thousand acres in South Texas and fighting mesquites is a never ending battle. We have tried the remedy /diesel mix, the root plow, and when me and my brothers got in trouble, we got the privilege of using the grubbing hoe!

1. The diesel/remedy mix is not bad at all, but like stated in other replies, you have to hit it over and over and over and if you miss any little stem, the plant will "die" and new shoots will appear the next year. You also cannot get ANY on the leaves of the plant, or you are completely wasting your time. Finally, with the price of diesel right now, it gets expensive. we used a 14/1 ratio diesel to Remedy.

2. Shredding them is the WORST thing to do. The roots continue to grow, the tops stay small, so you think the problem is being controlled, but it is devestating to grass and plows.

3. The past two years we have used a new mixture that has had great results so far, being sprayed from a tank on the back of the 4 wheeler. We use 8 oz. Remedy, 8 oz. of Tordon, 4 oz. of Penetrator plus, and 4 oz. of blue dye to help mark which plants we hit. The rest of the tank is filled with water. Unfortunately, I have no idea how big the tank is off the top of my head. With this mixture, we have actually been spraying the entire plant, leaves, stems, and all. It has had EXCELLENT results so far on mesquites, Seenie beans, huisache, blackbrush, and Retama. Bad news, it is REALLY expensive, good news is that it makes a LOT of spray, so it will last you a long long long time.

Like stated in earlier posts, you really should of already sprayed. this is about the time of the year to be wrapping up your spraying. ALSO: Don't spray anything when the wind is blowing too hard obviously, or you run the risk of klling other trees that you wwant around.

Hope this helps. May not. I dunno. Freaking mesquite.

[This message has been edited by Schimelpfening (edited 9/2/2008 11:33a).]

Its the back part of my place. It was dozed once....maybe 15 years ago, and the owners never kept it up, so the mesquite came back. They shredded it over and over again. Trust me, shredding it is not making any worse than it already is. Im not sure if mesquite has a maximum density, but im pretty sure its already there. I only shred it because the parts im srhedding are small, and i need it short to get to the back. It sounds like im going to need some sort of tank to spray this stuff, like something for the tractor. Any ideas how big or what i might need? Im trying to get an idea of total cost.

If i were to tell you the parts i have not shredded are 'thick', it would be grossly underestimated. :P


Im probably going to bite the bullet and get what you guys recommend.

[This message has been edited by jed1154 (edited 9/2/2008 9:41a).]

If you have a 4 wheeler, just get a tank for the back of that. It will be a lot cheaper and it can go where a tractor cannot, just make sure you have good tires.....

Jed--Northern Tool, Tractor Supply, etc have the spray rigs as do a lot of feed stores. Go by your County Agent's office and get the Brushbuster's brochure... it will give you the mix/ratios for different sizes of tanks, but if you mix 1/2 percent of Remedy and Reclaim, you are good to go. You will need to mix 1/4 percent surfactant and I like to use the dye so I can tell what I've sprayed and how well I got it covered--if you go that route, use about 1/2 percent also. See if you have a Helena Chemical store close by--you can get everything you need there. Also, I could buy the HiLite dye there in 1 gallon jugs for about $38/gal--they were selling quarts at the feed store for $23 !!!!!

[This message has been edited by Brush Country Ag (edited 9/2/2008 2:14p).]

Whatever you do, don't get the HiLite dye on you ....... unless you like the idea of going through life looking like a Smurf. That stuff is stout.

No matter what you wear or how careful you are, that stuff finds a way to get on you !!

While on the subject of killing unwanted woody's, can someone give me the mix they have used successfully on yaupon? I want to spray regrowth that is coming back around oak and pine trees that I have cleared. Someone posted this a while back...I tried searching but no luck..Thanks in advance.

Keep it simple.

Buy a backpack sprayer for about $100. It will hold about three gallons. Solo is the brand leader.

Go to your Farmer's Co-op. You're probably buying your chemicals here anyway. Get a discarded 32 gallon plastic barrel. These are empty Glyphos (roundup) products, it will cost nothing. Get the guy to make you a bung spigot. This will cost about $4.

Mix your chemicals in the barrel. Use about 20 oz of each and fill rest with water. I'd put the barrel in truck bed before filling it up. You can horse around a 30gallon barrel pretty easily, but it's tough to load it. You can also put it on a table or something. It needs to be 2-3 feet off the ground so you can stick your backpack under it when refilling.

You can use surfactant. I haven't had a noticeable difference with it, so I quit using it. I wouldn't bother with the dye. It's just a giant mess. Unless you go heavy, it's really tough to see. Even if you overlap and spray 10% of trees twice, you're wasting maybe $1/acre. I wouldn't bother with it either.

That's it. If you get after it, you can spray 30 gallons in a day.

Youpon has a very narrow window of spraying with Remedy/diesel mix. Better off with a cut stump tretment. I'm not sure about a streamline basal, but it might work if the base is clear.

Hey guys. Is this the same as the 'brochure' information?

http://texnat.tamu.edu/BrushBusters/index.htm

In April, I had a bunch of yaupons and other underbrush cleaned out on some property I own on the gulf coast. I hired a guy with a skid steer and a mulcher and he cleaned it all up really well. I knew it would come back and my plan is to kill the yaupon with chemical and once it dies and the roots have rotted, go in with a disc and really clean it up.

Much of the yaupon has sprouted from the old roots and are about 12" tall so I have gone in and hit it with a mixture of Remedy and Glyphosate with a surfactant. After about a week, some of the yaupon is showing signs of the treatment (leaves are singed) but some of them are showing no signs as all.

Once I've applied Remedy to yaupon, how long can I expect it to take before I can visibly see that it is dead? Given the lack of rain, I doubt it is growing very much and I so I suspect that if it is dormant it won't help get a kill. I'll continue to apply Remedy until I get a kill, but I sure would like to see some results before too long.

Schimelpfening said:

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My family has several thousand acres in South Texas and fighting mesquites is a never ending battle. We have tried the remedy /diesel mix, the root plow, and when me and my brothers got in trouble, we got the privilege of using the grubbing hoe!

1. The diesel/remedy mix is not bad at all, but like stated in other replies, you have to hit it over and over and over and if you miss any little stem, the plant will "die" and new shoots will appear the next year. You also cannot get ANY on the leaves of the plant, or you are completely wasting your time. Finally, with the price of diesel right now, it gets expensive. we used a 14/1 ratio diesel to Remedy.

2. Shredding them is the WORST thing to do. The roots continue to grow, the tops stay small, so you think the problem is being controlled, but it is devestating to grass and plows.

3. The past two years we have used a new mixture that has had great results so far, being sprayed from a tank on the back of the 4 wheeler. We use 8 oz. Remedy, 8 oz. of Tordon, 4 oz. of Penetrator plus, and 4 oz. of blue dye to help mark which plants we hit. The rest of the tank is filled with water. Unfortunately, I have no idea how big the tank is off the top of my head. With this mixture, we have actually been spraying the entire plant, leaves, stems, and all. It has had EXCELLENT results so far on mesquites, Seenie beans, huisache, blackbrush, and Retama. Bad news, it is REALLY expensive, good news is that it makes a LOT of spray, so it will last you a long long long time.

Like stated in earlier posts, you really should of already sprayed. this is about the time of the year to be wrapping up your spraying. ALSO: Don't spray anything when the wind is blowing too hard obviously, or you run the risk of klling other trees that you wwant around.

Hope this helps. May not. I dunno. Freaking mesquite.

[This message has been edited by Schimelpfening (edited 9/2/2008 11:33a).]

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If it's off the back of a 4 wheeler, odds are the tank is a 25 gallon tank. Possibly 15 gallon.

Harbor freight has the same one for $30 when you catch a sale. I use the hell out of mine, keep expecting it to break, but it just keeps on trucking. Don't spend $100 on a backpack sprayer unless you just want to.

For Foliar application of mesquite, Sendero is now cheaper (for me anyway) than the mix of Remedy & Reclaim.

You are mixing all of these at 1% ...... the Remedy + Reclaim is 1/2% of each.

Sendero is about $149.00 per gallon.

Using your prices, the Remedy/Reclaim is $155.00 per gallon, but you can argue that the Sendero works a little bit better than the Remedy/Reclaim.

There is one advantage of the Remedy/Reclaim mix over Sendero. And that is when you want to control species other than mesquite.

The Remedy/Reclaim kills or controls a lot of different species. The Sendero only controls mesquite and a handful of similar leafed plants.

For me, I go out and spray Sendero only on mesquites. Then I come back with Surmount (picloram+fluroxypyr) and spray all of the other species on fencelines and roads.

PSA: To the people of the world who mow down brush - just STOP!

That is about the worst thing you can do unless your goal is to turn your property into a brush filled wilderness down the road.

Allen - How much Sendero do you go thru? It is a lot cheaper if you buy a 30 gallon drum. ($103/gallon)

The past two years I have bought about 8 gallons each year. So I am not even close.

What is the price of 30 gallons? Some buddies could definitely try to share an order.

Never mind, I see it in your post now.

I knew I'd open a can of worms when I brought up the subject of herbicide and native tree control even if the thread was 10 years old!

Let's don't lose focus of my question though. If I apply Remedy to yaupon, when can I expect to see the affects of the Remedy?

Also, what is Reclaim and why is it added to Remedy? Is there a product that works better on Yaupon than Remedy?

Tordon 22k. Restricted use unless you buy the pre-diluted stuff (Tordon RTU) for cut stump treatment. Don't know how much you have to do.

And Sendero is now the way to go with foliar application to mesquites. Have to mix with Tordon if you want to get huisache and *****ly pear as well.

Short answer, awhile. The folks in E Tx that battle this stuff on the reg tell me it may look dead for 1 or 2 years, then resprouts in year 3.
Spray, defoliate, burn, repeat.

Rufnek..I might be wrong, but I think Reclaim may have a better residual than Remedy.

I did a bit of research online and reviewed some testing results. I saw were MAT28 or DPX-RDQ98 (Aminocyclopyrachlor) appears to be effective. I think I'll take that information to Sanders and see what they can tell me.

It is obvious though that this is going to take a lot of effort over what could be several years. The areas that I have are along a fenceline and some paths that we cleared through some thick timber and so it is something that I can repeat several times a year if necessary.

Rufnek said:

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I did a bit of research online and reviewed some testing results. I saw were MAT28 or DPX-RDQ98 (Aminocyclopyrachlor) appears to be effective. I think I'll take that information to Sanders and see what they can tell me.

It is obvious though that this is going to take a lot of effort over what could be several years. The areas that I have are along a fenceline and some paths that we cleared through some thick timber and so it is something that I can repeat several times a year if necessary.

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Mat28 has been on the internet, and in testing for quite a few years. I do not know if it is actually for sale to the public.

There are some raving reviews.

But there are also some things that did not impress me....... somewhere there was a chart of MAT28 effectiveness on various species. The same species that some of the other herbicides have trouble with..... MAT28 is also less effective in the way I read it.

Edit to add: I interpreted the MAT28 test results looking at the same species that I have some trouble with other herbicides. The MAT28 also was less effective on almost all of those same species. I think there was one particular species that they were very positive about.

One example that I have is Texas Persimmon. You can see it listed on the Surmount label, and I kill them with Surmount but they are very stubborn. But look at almost all of the brush killer labels and most of them only have "Persimmon" or "Eastern Persimmon" which is way easier to kill than the Texas Persimmon evidently.

If you go to Sanders and ask about MAT 28 (ACP), they're gonna look at you like a cow staring at a new gate. As will the other ag retailers. It's a R.O.W. product which Sanders does not have distribution on.
I have seen that it does have activity on yaupon in ROW's in a tank mix. The product you're looking for is Method and can be found if you know where to get it.

What is a ROW product? I'm not familiar with that term.

Maybe "Right of Way" ? Those power line guys spray some different stuff.

Rufnek said:

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What is a ROW product? I'm not familiar with that term.

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Rufnek,

Like Brush Country said, I imagine Micropterus is referring to Right-of-Way (e.g. - pipeline easements, railroad tracks, utility lines, highways, etc.).

BTW, I hadn't heard of 'Method' before, but looked it up and it appears to be a residual with bareground control if it's used in sufficient quantities. In lesser quantities, it appears to leave grass alone, which can be nice.

I've been using Imazapyr (Arsenal/Polaris) for my bare ground residual treatments and have been pretty happy with it since its gives me about 9 months of control, but if Method is priced attractively, or gives longer than 9 months of control, I'll certainly take a look at it. Thanks for the tip, Micropterus.