Cut Stump Treatment in Spring

[Treeflea24]

I've read in many places, including this forum, that cut stump herbicide treatments should not be done (or are less effective if done) in the spring,  due to upward sap flow. 

I'd like to do some of this work soon, and Im not sure if Im in that window yet. Is there another, more direct way of telling when it is a good or bad time to cut and treat the stump, rather than just waiting around for spring to be over? Could it be looked at it in terms of buds or leaves starting to show? Or could it be as simple as cutting one of them and seeing if sap comes up out of the stump? I did some of this work recently and the herbicide seems to be soaking in - is that good enough direct evidence to decide that Im ahead of the sap flow?

In case it matters - the specifics for my situation is bush honeysuckle, cut and treated with 25% glyphosate.

[beenthere]

For sure, I would try to use it and see if follow-up is needed. May just be effective enough to see satisfactory results.

[KEC]

I don't know how it would work with honeysuckle, but some suggest that, for buckthorn, you can put a black plastic bag over the cut stump. It deprives the stump of sunlight so that sprouts won't grow. I want to work on some buckthorn this spring and summer and I may try to put tin cans over top of the stumps if they are small.

[bitternut]

My climate is probably close to yours and I have been trimming some of my fruit trees which are still dormant. Don't think it would work if there was no flow to the roots. I would wait till full leaf out when the flow of sap is going down to the roots. I have had great success doing cut stump from July to leaf changing in the fall. But as beenthere suggested you could try some. You won't know if it works until leaf out or later to see if you get any stump sprouts.

Another option would be to use a basal spray if the snow is all gone. A basal spray from the ground up to 12-18 inches without doing any cutting could be done anytime that you had no snow. Give it a try and let us know what you did and how it worked.

[wisconsitom]

Yup on the basal bark and/or cut-stump should still work.  Do tomorrow 😉.

Done or supervised megatons of such work.  Window is huge, and yes, avoid heavy spring sap time.

Best is fall thru late winter, but most of year can work.  Good luck, exotic bush honeysuckle's a space-hogging monster.

[Treeflea24]

Thanks all for the guidance. I'll give it a go and report back on what, if anything, survives.

[Al_Smith]

If I understand this correctly the idea is to stop a stump from resprouting  ?? If that's the case one method that may or may not work .Wet it down and dump powdered milk on it then cover it up .If it works it should sprout mushrooms which will  eventualy digest it .I did this on a 2 foot maple cut off at ground level .It's all gone like the passenger pigeon but it took a couple of years . 

[wisconsitom]

Hi Al.  Not sure if you've got exotic, i.e. non native, invasive shrubs in your neck of the woods, but Treeflea24 is undoubtedly faced with masses of multi stemmed clumps of sprawling junk honeysuckle.  Ya just don't mess around on this kind of work.

It's better living thru chemistry, or forget it.  I mean, the forestry mulchers can help a lot in some cases, but even then, you'd better be ready with some herbicidal mop-up, or in about a year, you'll see that all your $$ and effort have been wasted.  

Maybe down by you, it's callery pear.  Heard that's taking over in some areas.

[Al_Smith]

Honeysuckle and kudzu and for that matter multiflora rose were thought to be the  answer at one time for cover,erosion etc .Turns out  they weren't .They are a pain   in the back sides to be rid of as is English ivy .However when somebody uses the word "stump " in my way of thinking it would be a stump not a little stub from a cut off vine .So whatever you put on it has to kill the roots else it will be back until the end of time . I think at one time Round Up would do it but here of late it has trouble killing weeds .

[beenthere]

I suspect stump or stub would be fitting here to describe what the OP wants to treat. 

[wisconsitom]

Yup, just a whole bunch of stubs, stumps, or stems, not as individual discreet "trees" but as clumping shrubs with numerous stems.

Glyphosate (Roundup) works on many species when used this way.  For maples, i.e. box elder, it seems to fail and triclopyr (Garlon) will work.  You get into really tough going with black locust-not native up here and invasive-and then ya gotta reach for imazypyr.  Now you're in the deep water...🤢

I was just trying to explain Al, that this is not about one tree stump in the yard with a sucker growing out of it, this is invasive brush where either stems are cut, then "stump" is daubed with appropriate herbicide, or lower portion of stem(s) is sprayed, again with the correct material, then do the same thing a thousand more times.

There's no resistance that I'm aware of to glyphosate among woody plants.  That's an agricultural thing, where millions of acres get sprayed every year with the same chemistry-the perfect setup to create super weeds.  Look up palmer amaranth.

[Treeflea24]

Wisconsitom & Beenthere have it right.
Im dealing with 1-2 acres of stubs and stumps. Some stumps get as big as 6-10", but the majority are 1-3", and many are smaller than that. Many are multi-stemmed. I'm estimating the quantity is somewhere in the high triple digits or low 1000s. Once an area is finished, a person with better balance  than me could step from stump-to-stump and cross the area without ever touching the ground.

Ill post a couple photos that show the before and after.

Grapevine is also in the mix and Ive been cutting and treating it when I find it growing on anything other than a honeylocust. Yesterday several of these grapes were pushing sap up after they were cut, so I guess I'm at the point where I should find something else to do (like getting my foliar spray setup prepped).

[Al_Smith]

I recently bought 5 acres of undeveloped land .The back half has 100 foot veneer grade white oaks ,magestic old growth Ohio's finest .
The front portion is grown up thicket which in reality has been planted by the birds .It's a jungle of vines and shrub like trees I have no idea what they are .I used the heavy duty Toro zero turn with modified Dixie Chopper brush blades and cut in trails .If it regrows I'll just grind it up again .

[Claybraker]

Grapevine is also in the mix and Ive been cutting and treating it when I find it growing on anything other than a honeylocust. Yesterday several of these grapes were pushing sap up after they were cut, so I guess I'm at the point where I should find something else to do (like getting my foliar spray setup prepped).

I have had excellent results basal spraying Garlon 4 on grapevine down here.

[Treeflea24]

Following up on this in case anybody is reading this in the future and dealing with a similar situation or wondering the same thing.
This treatment had a practically 100% kill rate. 
This was honeysuckle, cut stump treatment, 25% glyphosate, in Mid-March, in southern MI.
Follow-up treatments this summer were for spraying new seedlings that came up from the seedbank, but none of the cut and treated stems had resprouted.
Thanks to everyone for the guidance.
Photo shows the work at a mid point. The LH side is the great wall of HS slash, in the middle you can see what was left after HS was removed, and to the right you can see the density of the yet-to-be-cleared HS.

[Al_Smith]

  
For that matter" blue vitriol ",copper sulfate will kill just about any plant but it also kills anything around it too . Like roots growing in a sewer pipe it will kill the tree but you about need to use a sewer rooter to be rid of the roots but with the tree dead they won't come back .

[mike dee]

If keeping buckthorn in the dark kills it would spray paining the stumps black work?

I'm going to need a lot of pails otherwise...

[Al_Smith]

Now then grape vines .The back portion of the 5 acres I bought last year has 100 foot white oaks 31/2 feet in diameter ,mostly veneer grade .One of them sported a grape vine that on the ground level  is 6 inches in diameter and went to the canopy of that tree .I'm sure it grows grapes but you'd need a helicopter to get to them .I'd say that vine is as old as the massive tree .A 250 year old grape vine has to be a rarity .

[Klunker]

on the cut stump treatment.
I use it on alot of stuff, goldenrod, grapes, blackberries, ash seedlings, ironwood, grape vines and few other things I don't remember at this time.
I mix it at about 20%, mixed with dye and a foaming agent in an small hand pump applicator.
One load is about 45-50 oz and keeps me working for about 1 1/2 hrs.
I clear areas of open woodland from most ground brush, burn leaves off in the fall then seed it with native grasses and forbs.
The burning will kill maple seedlings and many other small bushes. It will top kill honeysuckle and buckthorn.
After a couple years the grasses and forbs are growing well and carry a decent but nothing like a prairie fire.
This will pretty much kill off alot off brush/tree seedlings after a couple of years.
 
The foaming agent keeps it in place, it doesn't run off as easily as just herbicide mix. Plus you use less herbicide mix because of this.