How to clear Bracken?

tomc

Hi

I have a couple of rough fields that are overgrown with Bracken, looking for the best way to get rid of it and return fields to grass? Am not a farmer just have a small holding.

Thanks

Tom

_Brian

Apparently it hates regular mowing. If your ground is good enough I’d start with that before any chemicals.

The Continental Op

Even putting a roller over it and damaging the stems has a noticeable effect on it regrowth.

Wildsurfer

Get in a track machine with a mulcher, job done. Spray any regrowth next year with grazon 90.

ruwithme

If your not farming, consider leaving it be.enough other lads burning oil & wearing out metal, just because they can.

It's the food producing plains need the oil & metal & odd chemical

K.G.

Is asulux still available

Castlekeeper

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058308887/how-to-clear-bracken

What's way suits you best to limit it?

What resources have you? -Machinery, Stock?

What is the terrain like? Is it safe?

What experience/skills?

You want it for grass so I assume stock are in the plan and if so they'll need housing.

If it's just for appearances I'd set a few trees in it as is, maybe silvopasture style, maybe even a few fruit trees where convenient if suitable.

Bracken is a natural forerunner to secondary succession woodland anyway.

As mentioned cutting, trampling or breaking the young stems in April really sets it back, be aware that it's poisonous but stock will only eat it if starving, I've never seen an animal to bother it here.

Count Mondego

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120968134#Comment_120968134

Yes, got it a few months ago. Was waiting for a dry day to spray ferns.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120969975#Comment_120969975

I taught there had to be a special derogation ( as in Department approval) to use it on grassland whick ferns is

Viscount Aggro

I sprayed a few acres with Asulox mixed with Agral, a sticking agent, using a backpack sprayer. Now is the time to spray, once they start falling back. Watch out for the black dots on back of fronds, the spores are cancerous.

Castlekeeper

The asulox wouldn't be the best either!

It would be stone mad to be spraying something as tall as bracken with a knapsack, and nearly impossible to get sufficient water volume. Anyway and it's to late to spray this year, the plants have stopped growing, mid July is the recommended cut off.

You'd do as much good next spring by hitting the young fronds with a hurley, and it'd be a lot better for the health of everything.

I spent too many days as a young lad wading through banks of the stuff with a handlance, to no lasting effect thank god...

Western Pomise

When people are talking about Bracken here.....is it Whins they are discussing?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120974882#Comment_120974882

This sh1t

grange mac

Do any of ye know what male and female fern looks like... Apparently only one of them is dangerous to cattle when eaten... And I don't know which. I just have 3 and 4 ft fern now all leaning on fencer wire 🙄

Lime Tree Farm

I wonder what bracken was used for in the past, I also saw in the Petty Sessions where two neighbours were fined for stealing it from the same landlord.

Lime Tree Farm

They are a delicacy in China, I remember they being warned not to eat them in Wicklow as they could cause cancer.

Wildsurfer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120974882#Comment_120974882

I thought that's what OP had the problem with I call them ferns. And I call 'whins' Gorse bushes!

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120976078#Comment_120976078

Animal bedding. Like straw.

Dopey landlord probably had no intention of using it themselves. Just to show power and make an example. Perhaps even a backhander to fill a quota for bodies to go to Oz.

Lime Tree Farm

Fiddleheads.

https://www.ruralsprout.com/fiddleheads/

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120976078#Comment_120976078

I think it could be used as an animal fed during the winter, I think furze was similarly used as a winter feed for stock.

arctictree

Whins are the bain of my life. They grow like mad here as I am high up with acidic land. Make good firewood if you had the time.

Western Pomise

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120975072#Comment_120975072

They are 'Ferns' in Mayo. 'Whins' are 'whins'!.....only posh farmers call them 'Gorse'!😉

Had a heap of Ferns on a bit of rented ground........good land that was badly neglected.Got fella in to mulch them and heaps of briars in middle of fields.

Sprayed the regrowth of fresh ferns and briars the following year.It killed the briars well,but only stunted the ferns for a few months.

The following year the Ferns were back stronger than ever.while the briars were killed.

Ferns have a very strong root system which makes them hard divils to wipe out.

Count Mondego

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120972711#Comment_120972711

You're supposed to spray them in July and August. Still worth doing now.

Count Mondego

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120976078#Comment_120976078

It was used as beding for hens I believe. Poisonous to cattle.

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120979841#Comment_120979841

Sort of. I've some that need spraying and they have just got to the stage where they are starting to go brown so I expect to be be back spraying again next year.

Count Mondego

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120979852#Comment_120979852

I couldn't get one dry day in July to spray them. They're all along my roadway and growing under the wall into a number of fields. Two knapsacks would have done the job.

AntrimGlens

We've quite a bit of bracken on the hill and the only job on it is Asulox. I sprayed about an acre with a hand lance and 100m hose from the tractor sprayer about 4 years ago and it's as clean as a bead still.

Bracken has a rhizome root which can travel a serious distance underground so is hard to kill, I wouldn't be using Grazon or anything other than Asulox or Asulam on it. Myself and a neighbour had planned a couple of years ago to get a helicopter in from Black Isle helicopters to spray it, but the neighbour baulked at it at the last minute so it never got done. This July I had a man lined up with a drone and a 25 litre tank to spray it, but the wet weather meant we never got a dry day to get at it and it's too late now. His drone is a fairly impressive piece of kit and can do about an acre an hour, so long as it's relatively open space and he has line of sight to the drone. One of the first men he did a bit for, the drone went out over the edge of the cliff towards the sea and there was supposedly a fair panic on before he regained sight of it.

Castlekeeper

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120979868#Comment_120979868

Wouldn't an hour or two with an edgy briar hook or scythe clean a sight of them, wet or dry?

Jb1989

Can't beat a bit of bracken.

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120982265#Comment_120982265

You might as well shake a stick at them. I've cut them for years on some sites with no apparent loss of vigor. Trampling/driving over the stems had better effect.