Anyone else here in Missouri with old farm land battling thorny Honey Locust trees?

The MF'ers sprout suckers and fast as I cut them. They drink Tordon RTU like water. Girdling my Honey Locust's is nearly impossible because the trees are very healthy with more than usual thorns and branches. With out a lot of work you can't even get close to the trunk.

My next plan of attack will be this method from the Missouri Department of Conservation website.


I hate having to use diesel fuel on my land which is close to a river, but I am out of choices now. I would love to hire a bulldozer for a few days, but my pockets sure aren't over flowing with money. Next time I am working of controlling them I will take some pictures of my thorny Honey Locust trees on steroids.

We had multiflora rose covering our farm as a kid. As fast as we'd cut it out. It would grow back.


The solution for it and thorn trees was pulling everything out by the roots. Guess who got the job of going in to wrap chains ?? What didn't pull was brush hogged. For the better part of three summers it was an all out war.

I know your pain.

The big trees we cut down and pulled young trees until the root systems finally died out. It took years. Today the place is fenced in sections for cattle grazing. Pastures are picture book perfect now, after a decade of root pulling.

Cedar trees, mult-floral rose, and now the honey locust.

All one has to to do is drive around southern Missouri and look at the road sides and you will notice cedar trees sprouting up everywhere.

The only hope is multi-floral rose has a disease called "rust" affecting many of them in my area and around Missouri. I spoke to someone who works for the Conservation Department and little known about it, but multi-floral rose is not native to Missouri and it looks as though the plants have actual metal rust. Its unknown how long it may be or if multi-floral rose eradicates it's self.

They have to be the hardest wooded trees to cut down. Its literally like cutting into iron. Some day I hope to be able to purchase a tractor. At least I have a decent chainsaw.

What kind of tractor did you use 1911smith?

We used a John Deere 4020, dualed up, all four rear tires full of fluid with suitcase weight bar maxxed. We'd hook chains wrapped to 3 point and pull like hell. When we'd get the front end several feet off ground with tree securely rooted. We'd borrow the neighbors 5020. When I say war, I mean we waged an all out battle. I can remember backing three point hook-up brush hog into trees and bushes. Brush hog all the way up and slowly lowering it down on trees as much as 5 inches in diameter. Tracter didn't have a cab. All you could do was duck and pray you weren't clubbed with something flying off blade. We had lots of fires, ignited with old tires and diesel fuel. We sprayed every year. Pulled roots, burned trees, bushes and brush and climbed into those bushhes and get stuck all over. Looking back if social services would have come out in this day and age, seeing us out there. My folks would've been hauled to town for child endangerment.



Those were good times.

Yeah, I've got a bunch of 'em.  Scary mean trees.

So far I haven't found any chemical treatment that keeps them in check.  Cutting them down is an event. We first clear any surrounding brush and clean up any dropped branches/thorns, mow the surrounding area short, then work our way in towards the trunk.  Shave off all thorns from the ground up as high as we can reach.  Make sure your escape route is perfectly clear - you DON'T want to trip and fall when the tree starts to come down.  Cut it and run - fast and far - and pray that the sumbitch doesn't get hung up in an adjoining tree.  Which they usually do, since it seems that a single 1/4" branch can reach out and snag anything within 50 feet and miraculously support the whole tree, against all laws of physics and gravity, to keep it from completing its fall.  If this happens, just fence off the entire area and put the property on the market.

If successful, we use a machete to strip thorns, and cut it into firewood (makes great firewood).  All small branches are hauled to a brush pile and immediately burned.  Then, keep the stump trimmed back.  If you don't stay on top of it, you will go back inside for a drink of water, only to return and find that it has resprouted into a vengeful, multi-trunked demon bush 20' in diameter, intent on rending the flesh from the insolent being that offended it in such a manner.

Once it's completely gone, chopped up and burned to oblivion, there will still be one more thorn.  This one is completely invisible, and between 5" and 6" long.  It lies in hiding until your mother-in-law, baby niece, or the person on site to inspect the property before making you an offer on the land comes by, at which point it viciously attacks, impaling sole, foot, and upper of the shoe, depositing it's poisonous payload in retribution for you having had the audacity to attempt to end its vile and wicked life.

Good Luck.

My friend and I removed a honey locust from his farm property with and SKS and an AR-15 with slidefire stock. 100% effective!

My Uncle Carl (rest his soul) showed me how to kill Honey Locust and Hedge trees.

He used a hand auger and drilled a 1" hole at a 45 degree angle deep into the trunk of the tree.  He filled the hole with rock salt, and plugged it with a 2" long piece of broom handle that he would hammer in.  

The tree would be dead within a year.

it is a little bit of a slow method but if you ring the bottom of the tree 1"-2" deep and let stand for at least six months almost all the thorns fall off and makes it easier to cut down.  Once down take a 55 gallon drum cut in half and place in the ends.  drills some holes near the center of the stump and pour a little diesel fuel on stump.  Place some charcoal on stump light and place barrel over stump and walk away.  Usually in a few days it burns out the stump and whats left will eventually deteriorate.  Like i said a little but has worked for me many times and the barrel trick works on all stumps.

You sir truly understand the ways of the Bastard Trees. Also, you owe me a keyboard.

A honey locust ate my baby.

I hate them, with a passion.  I will inevitably find the fallen, dry, sharp, thorn with my foot.

Better living thru chemicals.  Get your license, or have a farmer already licensed buy either Valpar.or Pramatol.  One squirt with Valpar will kill a large tree.  We use it heavily in Nebr to kill trees.  If Valpar won't work for some reason,, use Pramatol (sp).  It's a soil sterilant.  guaranteed to kill any vegetation.  Of course it lasts about 6 years, so nothing will come back for years.  Be careful with it and put it just around the base of the tree.  Don't spread it around and you'll be fine.

Good luck

I've had two of those locusts by my house, ringed them last spring and again toward the middle of summer....the smaller one is dead and been cut down but the larger of the two shot out a few suckers in the fall....my 16 year old and I are going to use the rope saw (dang power lines) and finish it off in a couple weeks

Sell it and move. thats the best I can tell you unless you want ALOT of work.

Most of them on my place just up an died last summer Big , small , in between , probably 80% of em just died

+1....I might be lost stumbling in here but live 2 miles from Missouri so please forgive the mild intrusion.  The consumer grade chemicals are fine for the standard consumer grade trees....but when you get into locust and related you need professional grade stuff.....only available if you have a professional applicator license.  Now if you're desiring the license isn't too hard to get, its a test you have to pass, realistically it's probably easier to have a farmer friend buy the stuff for you, you can get it at most any local chemical/fertlizer seling coop.  Be prepared for sticker shock and make damn sure you read the directions/precautions/safety guidelines and mix ratios....this isn't the "well a bit is good so more is better" concept of chemicals.  The mix of Tordon and diesel works fine for most trees, but when we were pushing out treelines with locust on the farm we generally used the spendy stuff very carefully applied as we were normally turning the treeline into crop ground so we could just pour it everywhere.

Actually this is the coolest way I've seen a thorny locust die.  



An "oldtimer" neighbor showed me this:



The locust had a fork in it about5-6 feet off the ground, he stuck a wad of newspaper in that fork and lit it.

stepped back about 10' and threw a coffee can full of gas on it.



It burnt every needle off that tree and then just died out.
I've done it a few times since then......almost as fun as tannerite.



 

Foam fill the tires on your tractor, and embrace the nitrogen fixing of the tree, go all permaculture and get a surfival food forest going!  

Of course if you want them dead, I would try bore hole with salt first, before I went all "agent orange".  

NPT

I have considered the bore hole with salt. I may try it before moving to chemicals.

I wonder if Ice Melt salt would work?

Behold thine enemy:

When folks ask what I raise on my farm I tell them hedge, locust, and multiflora rose.  My Livestock consists of ticks, chiggers, snakes and an occasional deer and turkey.  I have consulted a private land specialist with the Mo Dept of Consrvation about the multiflora rose.  Basically it's burn, cut and spray-repeat every year.  I have had pretty good luck treading cut hedge stumps with Tordon but it doesn't seem to be very effective with locust.  This winter I have been treating locust stumps with a strong (50/50) treatment of round-up.  This summer we'll see how effective that was.  Either which way, some sprouts always pop up and need to be sprayed in the summer.  It's a long hard battle with many scratches and cussing.  I've built some great brush piles this winter which should help the bunnies and other small critters.  Multiflora rose and blackberries seem to be the hardest to control in the timber.  The deer do like the cover.  Short of wearing kelvar, it's impossible to walk thru some parts of the timber.  The battle continues but it keeps me off the streets and out of the bars.

I've learned to always have an air bubble handy and have become a good customer of the local tire shop.

Forget SHTF, Zombies, Russian Para Troopers,.... The real Invasion is HONEY LOCUST!

The only honey is the toxic oil from the thorns!

I swear when you cut one with a chain saw you will see a few sparks coming from the wood!

Had forgotten about that. Yes, you would see an occasional spark. Boy, this brings back stuff I'd forgotten about like  McCullough chain saws. We'd burn one up every other year. Had to have two. One to run while one cooled. Chainsaw blades flying apart, couldn't keep on sharp.

We had a hundred acres, 25 in corn, 22 in alfalfa hay, 25 acres of pasture and 25 acres of multa-flora rose with a dry creek bed through the middle of the farm full of thorn trees. There were a few blackberry bushes. As kids we'd get hauled to those bushes in the back of an El Camino. Baskets in hand to fill. I remember being real careful before picking a berry, making sure there wasn't something staring back at me. The three acres I didn't account for was all garden where 3 boys spent their summers.

The place was loaded with mice, pigeons, grass snakes, black snakes, copper heads and grass hoppers. I was sent to the cellar one night for a mason jar of green beans. Just about the time I got to the bottom of those stairs something long, cold and clammy dropped across the back of my neck. to the floor. I turned, ran screaming up those stairs, across the porch and into the kitchen. Only to be sent back after those green beans.

Once the bushes and trees were all burned out and gone. Mice ,rabbits and snakes pretty much thinned out.  

Hony Locust is an endless battle.  Deer eat the seed pods as winter emergeny food and redeposit them everywhere.   HL does not like fire at all, I use prescribed burns to keep them in check. The biggins I ring and treat with Tordon, after many of the thorns have fallen off or decayed, I cut em up for firewood.  

The basal treatment is very good too but Remedy is expensive.