Milestone on trees other than Albizias

[knieft]

Dobanion,
Thanks for the Triclopyr tip. I have enough gunpowder trees left to kill that I can do some experimenting. And will take on the guavas accordingly.


I saw somewhere that basal bark application of Milestone was very effective with Albizias. I tried it on some gunpowders to no lasting effect beyond scarring.

terracore,
I didn’t know about the Albizias being leguminous and Milestone being specific that way. The toilet paper trees might also be because Milestone kills them bing bang fast and complete. I wonder if it may also have something to do with Albizias having their vascular system very close under the bark, or maybe that is a characteristic of leguminous trees.

Or1on,
In my limited experience, the trouble with girdling (besides it being a lot of work on huge trees) is that the tree above the girdle can die, but the root system remains and can sprout up very vigorous new branches/trunks and you can end up with multiple trunked tree replacing the single trunked tree. The toilet paper trees are great at this. And a friend claims he paid a guy to girdle a huge gunpowder (like 20 inches) and the tree repaired itself and kept growing.

Of course, every invasive species is different and there is likely no one size fits all method.

I will report continuing success/failure. Thanks for all the interesting posts! Rock on PunaWeb…

Cheers,
Kirt

[bgiles]

Milestone sounds a lot like Clopyralid. Effective and relatively safe to handle, its persistence destroyed the composting industry in eastern Washington and was banned in 2002. People getting compost from composting facilities found out it killed their gardens and plantings. Originally developed for use along railroad tracks, then found to be effective against thistles, then... Ultimately found its way into compost. I've had success with guava using Crossbow after girdling, but I also dig down and cut off roots to possible other guavas...

[Obie]

Here is the best info on using Milestone to eliminate Albizia. It only takes a small amount to kill a big tree. I don't see any listed use for other trees. I have eliminated all of the albizia on my 1 acre and 2 of my neighbor's lots. We were able to just let the trees fall apart.

https://www.biisc.org/managing-albizia/

[dobanion]

I think after three pages, can we conclude, on a few select species (Albizia being #1) milestone works great, but otherwise, try Tricloplyr.

[offgridguy]

We can conclude that nothing beats tools like machetes, axes and chainsaws but I guess if you're weak and lazy then poison will work as well.

[terracore]

We can conclude that nothing beats tools like machetes, axes and chainsaws but I guess if you're weak and lazy then poison will work as well.

Does one have to be weak AND lazy to use poisons?  What if I'm just weak and old, but very motivated.  Can I use them then?

[Obie]

I was going to respond but I'm tired of being attacked. I'm with you, I'm 76 years old and using a 60 inch chainsaw is kind of out of the question.

[dobanion]

I started using Triclopyr just because I got sick of cutting the same weed down and hauling it out every 6 months.

Mini excavators are great to pull a entire Christmas Berry stump or stand of guava out, but expensive to use almost daily.