black locust control

JimBod. · March 19, 2015, 10:10:54 AM

Any advice on controlling/removing black locust? Doing some tsi on my 15 acres of timber.

Dave Shepard · March 19, 2015, 10:33:23 AM

Let them get to 5-6" and make fence posts out of them. If the other locusts have any sense, they will move out. :D I don't know how to control them. I would actually like to encourage them here on our farm.

WV Sawmiller · March 19, 2015, 04:11:38 PM

Goats love them. Anything else there they would harm? If not fence it in and they'll clear everything as high as they can stand on their back legs, bend over or if leaning a little, climb.

They are preferred fence material and make good poles for pole barns if you let them grow long enough. Are preferred firewood species here too. Anything I get a 7-1/2' X 5" diameter straight section becomes a fence post. If I can get 15' X 10" becomes a pole or cut in half to make brace posts. Tops and large limbs become firewood. I sold hundreds of posts and one order of poles last year. One guy trucked 250 of the posts over 300 miles. Cut green they smell like green peanuts to me. The blooms make beautiful honey too.

Overaged trees here start to rot and make good woodpecker and flying squirrel dens.

mesquite buckeye · March 20, 2015, 12:13:08 AM

Cherry trees will get a good start under the light shade from black locust. Also walnut.
Being a legume, they add nitrogen to the soil which benefits the soil and the other nearby trees. I would keep them and thin them for posts or highly rot resistant lumber. ;D

Magicman · March 21, 2015, 09:34:25 AM

I have to use herbicides. If not controlled, they will completely take over here.

JimBod. · March 21, 2015, 09:47:44 AM

What do you use magic man? I was told tordon doesn't work.

curdog · March 21, 2015, 10:41:08 AM

You could use accord, transline, remedy may work ( haven't tried it). Arsenal won't work on it since it's a legume. There are many generics of accord that will work just as good, tractor supply carries one I usually use, but can't think of it off the top of my head.

I'd would guess tordon would work, but I'd be against spraying it in standing timber that I was managing. You could use it as a hack and squirt, but you would have to be very careful, and I'm not sure I'd want to risk it.

JohnW · March 21, 2015, 10:54:06 AM

Quote from: curdog on March 21, 2015, 10:41:08 AM
You could use accord, transline, remedy may work ( haven't tried it). Arsenal won't work on it since it's a legume. There are many generics of accord that will work just as good, tractor supply carries one I usually use, but can't think of it off the top of my head.

I'd would guess tordon would work, but I'd be against spraying it in standing timber that I was managing. You could use it as a hack and squirt, but you would have to be very careful, and I'm not sure I'd want to risk it.

Tractor Supply carries Big N' Tuf a Glyphosate weed killer

curdog · March 21, 2015, 11:15:50 AM

Quote from: JohnW on March 21, 2015, 10:54:06 AM
Quote from: curdog on March 21, 2015, 10:41:08 AM
You could use accord, transline, remedy may work ( haven't tried it). Arsenal won't work on it since it's a legume. There are many generics of accord that will work just as good, tractor supply carries one I usually use, but can't think of it off the top of my head.

I'd would guess tordon would work, but I'd be against spraying it in standing timber that I was managing. You could use it as a hack and squirt, but you would have to be very careful, and I'm not sure I'd want to risk it.
Tractor Supply carries Big N' Tuf a Glyphosate weed killer

That sounds right to me, I think it's 50% glyphosate.

JimBod. · March 21, 2015, 10:06:45 PM

I've had mixed success girdling and applying diesel and straight roundup in the dormant season. They are just coming up everywhere. You can see where they started. There is a ravine with some big ones. I'm cutting a few for poles for my soon to be woodshed. There are some old white and red oaks in my woods, some don't look too healthy. I am trying to kill the big black locusts around them to see if it helps.

Claybraker · March 22, 2015, 08:00:12 AM

for good size trees, sometimes I use a variation of hack-n-squirt. Drill and squirt. Grab a cordless drill with about a 3/8" bit. Drill through the bark, and lift up on the drill to make a shallow pocket to hold 1 ml of herbicide. Drill the number of holes per herbicide label and fill each with the correct amount of herbicide. Pacforest Supply sells a rig for correct metering, or you can get a syringe. When I've had failures with Tordon, it's because I didn't get enough herbicide where it needed to be.

Al_Smith · March 24, 2015, 08:00:05 PM

Black locust will grow in about any type of soil .The tree is of the variety it propagates from the roots. Maybe 50 or more trees all tied together .

If they are small enough repeated mowing with a bush hog mower will eventually get them all but it takes some time .Now my bud Swampish would attack them with his brush saw but he's much more into manual labor than myself .

Wood with any size makes great posts that are all but rot proof and the wood is one of the few you can burn green cut .It has nearly the heat output as anthrasite coal .