One of the reasons we've gone to mostly using glyphosate
is we've tried some other products
and the soil activity is a critical factor.
With this cut stump treatment it seems, though,
if the chemical has some soil activity, such as a imazapyr
or, well, the Habitat or Arsenal,
which is a imazapyr, or some other chemical,
then we may have some unexpected or unintended consequences.
There's a spot right here behind me.
We treated this stump with Habitat.
We like the aquatic label on it and everything,
but this is actually a leech zone from a canal down.
And so we've got these the leaching
and you can see down where the Habitat has killed
the vegetation down below the treatment from the motion
of the water through the soil.
Glyphosate loses all activity when it
comes in contact with the soil.
So that's why we've stuck with glyphosate.
We're trying other products as well,
but we're really pleased with glyphosate in that it does not
have the soil activity and kill unintended targets.
Here's another good example of what happens when
you've got some soil activity.
You can see that streak of dead zone
right down below the stump.
You also notice that we've cut these fairly high.
You can grab this with a piece of equipment and yank it out.
These were treated in 2010.
So it's been three years since these were treated.
They're dead.
So you could come back with some equipment now, yank it out
and you would not get any circuit growth off from it.
So you can cut them up that high and get good kill
about 12 to 14 inches.
You don't have to cut them off right down to the ground.
This is an example of a Russian olive tree that was cut
and not treated with an herbicide.
And the growth here represents probably one or two seasons
growth of suckers and sprouts from the base of the tree.
Now this particular tree once it had re-sprouted,
we came in and treated with a different treatment method,
which was basal bark herbicide application, where
you take an herbicide like Garlon 4 Ultra and a crop oil
and mix that and spray just the bottom 12
to 18 inches of the tree.
And you can see that it's very effective on small trees
with thin bark.
But you can expect this kind of regrowth
if you simply cut a Russian olive
and don't treat it with something.
So here's an example.
This stump right here was treated in January of 2010.
So it's been 3 and 1/2 years.
It's totally dead as opposed to partially dead.
No, it's totally dead.
And here we have one behind us.
This was a control.
It was cut down the same day, but no chemical, no herbicide
treatment.
So that's just to show you the difference
of what happens between treatment and no treatment.
In summary, the cut stump method is an extremely effective way
to control Russian olives.
One of the very nice things about it
is it doesn't matter what time of the year you do it,
it's equally effective during the growing season,
or during the dormant season.
Some of the keys, I think, are getting a nice clean final cut
so that you have a relatively level surface on all
of the cut stems that you're working with, applying
the herbicide within a few minutes after you've cut,
and making sure that you get complete coverage
of the cambium area just under the bark around the surface
of each stem.
And if you do that, our experience
has been that you can expect nearly 100% control.
If you try to take shortcuts, cut the trees
and not treat them, or cut the trees
and not treat within a reasonable amount of time,
you may not have the results you want.
But if you've got some Russian olives
that you'd like to get rid of, give the cut stump method
a consideration because it's been very effective in our test
plots.