02-24-2010, 11:15 PM
Crossbow is an excellent herbicide to use against guava. We wanted to use a herbicide that did not involve alot of overspray or waste. Best to buy a refillable squirt bottle such as saline solution bottle and apply it to the freshly cut stumps. If you are cutting alot of guava, leave the stumps a foot or so high so that you can find them later, then go back around with chainsaw and crossbow, cut and poison. Be careful not to trip and fall onto those stumps, you can get hurt really bad or killed. You will need to pick up all the little logs and stubs that are cut when you re-cut the stumps off, we found almost half of them throw down roots and start over. Best thing to do with the brushy trees and logs is chip them up. Even if you start a woodpile, they start to grow again.
We found about 95% or better kill rate with the crossbow when applied on fresh cut stump, so you'll need to go around in 2-3 months and look for re-sprouts. Any cut guava that is not killed or chipped will send up at least 10 more new sprouts and you will end up with a bush of new trees where you had only 1, so you NEED to use poison.
Cheapest place to get crossbow is BEI. Get it by the gallon, you'll use more than one, likely.
Also good idea to get some Turf Trax Blue, which is a dissolvable dye to mix into the crossbow, so you'll know where you've poisoned already. Just 5-10% of the turf trax mixed into the crossbow will give a nice color. It's a mess but will wash off your hands and clothes. We use a kitchen baster and some funnels to handle the turf trax and crossbow, to reduce spilling and to minimize the mess.
The crossbow will work similarly on fai'a.
We found about 95% or better kill rate with the crossbow when applied on fresh cut stump, so you'll need to go around in 2-3 months and look for re-sprouts. Any cut guava that is not killed or chipped will send up at least 10 more new sprouts and you will end up with a bush of new trees where you had only 1, so you NEED to use poison.
Cheapest place to get crossbow is BEI. Get it by the gallon, you'll use more than one, likely.
Also good idea to get some Turf Trax Blue, which is a dissolvable dye to mix into the crossbow, so you'll know where you've poisoned already. Just 5-10% of the turf trax mixed into the crossbow will give a nice color. It's a mess but will wash off your hands and clothes. We use a kitchen baster and some funnels to handle the turf trax and crossbow, to reduce spilling and to minimize the mess.
The crossbow will work similarly on fai'a.