Killing Sweetgum saplings

[GW]

 
Cindy (gf) has a 5 acre pine plantation that has about a million small SG. The pines will be getting their final thinning soon with the remaining trees left for a potential home site. I'm thinking it would be easier to deal with the SG before all of the pine tops are left on the ground.

My plan (so far) is to get one of these to cut the saplings with:

http://www.echo-usa.com/product.asp?Model=SRM-400U&Category=BRUSHCUTTER

...and then apply an herbicide to the freshly cut stumps. Is there a better way? The saplings range up to about 2 inches with a few odd larger trees and average about 1.5 inches.

[WDH]

GW,

Sounds like a sound plan.

[customsawyer]

If you just want to kill the sweetgum and not lay it on the ground you can use the hack and squirt method. That means you carry a hatchet and a spray bottle with the chemical in it. Depending on how strong you mix the chemical but if you go with a 50% aresenal and 50% accord/roundup mix you only have to put one chop for every 3" of dia. then squirt a little chemical in the cut and this will kill the sweetgum. Make sure that your chop into the side of the tree goes through the cambrium layer as this is what will carry the chemical down to the root. Don't put very much of a squirt in to each cut, if it starts to run out of the cut you have put to much.