ragwort scourge

jonny d

how do ye feel about the lack of cop on both farmers and local councils have in controling the spread of ragwort. i spray and pull any along the ditches in my fields,but most of the neighbours dont even top the bitchen things. even in silage ground they dont even pull the whores along the headlands when they flower. afaik its an offence not to at least keep them under control..discussion welcome..

roosterman71

They are a scourge. in my younger days I spent summer after summer pulling them in our fields. Its was hardship, but well worth the effort. Every summer we'd have bright yellow fields. Topping them was no good cos the cattle would eat them as they died.

Rujib1

Just spent 2 days pulling the damn things. Frustrates me to see the road margins and rented land next door absolutely covered with them.

R1

adne

Is it any good spraying them with Mortone

Rujib1

adne wrote: »

Is it any good spraying them with Mortone

They are biennials! take two years to get to the tall flowered plant we see in the fields. In the first year they are at the rosette stage. That is the best time to hit them chemically. best done when they are nice and visible. Say Feb / March.

R1

roosterman71

Your screwed if the neighbours fields are covered in them too. The seeds will keep blowing in. It might be an idea to get together with your neighbouring farms to tackle the problem

F.D

Spent a few days on my holidays last week from the work pulling the stuff hope it makes a difference, in most cases i got most of the roots aswell with the ground been a bit soft.
If there was little bits of the roots left will they still grow back or just die off?

roosterman71

F.D wrote: »

Spent a few days on my holidays last week from the work pulling the stuff hope it makes a difference, in most cases i got most of the roots aswell with the ground been a bit soft.
If there was little bits of the roots left will they still grow back or just die off?

They'll grow back, but growth will be stunted a bit for a year.

bagaspuds

Our fields were covered in them once. We have hardly any now.
The only way is to pull them up and take them out of the field.

I even pull them from the road margins near me!

They'll only seed into your land......the council ain't going to tackle them.:mad:

jonny d

not very easy to approach some people and suggest that they take some remedial action.I think the dept. should take more notice of this when inspecting SFP and REPs rather than some of the so called regulations they check up on

whelan1

i spent this morning pulling them most hateful job EVER !!! we had sprayed them but they came back ... have to do more tomorrow