clearing fescue within the shrubby areas

southernblues

southernblues

New member
so i have some nice shrubs and canopy cover that has fescue growing around and under it. looking for suggestions to mitigate the fescue without damaging the shrubs. same way with some hedgerows....how do you get rid of fescue in those fencerows without burning the trees?
 
I have mowed it to the ground, disced it, sprayed it, burned it, grazed it with sheep, it comes back with vengence twice as thick in about 4 years, without constant maintenece. American Cyanimide makes a fescue killer that I have heard works, it's about 5 years on the market. What works for me is discing and letting ragweed and weeds invade the sod area, fescue gets clumpy and isolated, easier to spot spray. But I am not in a government program.
 
gotcha - but my question is this...how do you get rid of the fescue UNDER the good canopy cover/shrubby areas that are ideal for quail? I can't fit my JD 4020 under that brush with the disc!! ;)
 
graze it down, and or a fast moving fire, your still going to loose some brush probably, big problem is going to be keeping the fescue beat down, I think you need to decide, value of the bushes, vs. value of getting rid of the fescue, and starting over with shrubs, in either case I would suggest it will be an ongoing struggle. If you can beat it back when it starts to grow, before the shrubs leaf out, you have a fighting chance of interrupting a life cycle, and creating some space, this is an early spring battle.
 
oldandnew said:
graze it down, and or a fast moving fire, your still going to loose some brush probably, big problem is going to be keeping the fescue beat down, I think you need to decide, value of the bushes, vs. value of getting rid of the fescue, and starting over with shrubs, in either case I would suggest it will be an ongoing struggle. If you can beat it back when it starts to grow, before the shrubs leaf out, you have a fighting chance of interrupting a life cycle, and creating some space, this is an early spring battle.
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great feedback - especially the spring timing suggestion!
 
One thing you could try is to wait until a killing frost has dropped the leaves on the shrubs then spray with roundup. You'll have to have some decent temperatures after to get good results on the fescue. I would avoid using surfactant so it has less of a chance to affect the shrubs. Try your best to not hit the shrubs more than you have to. If you want to approach this as an experiment, try several different treatments on parts of the space you have to treat and evaluate sometime next spring or summer to see what took care of the fescue and left the shrubs. Fall application should be most gentle on what you want to protect.
 
I'll second what Troy has suggested. A late fall early winter app of RU should do the trick, just make sure the woody plants are dormant. You might also try POAST herbicide, I believe its shrub/forb friendly but hates grass like fescue. I'm sure there are other products out there, might try googling it.:thumbsup:
 
jaytee said:
I'll second what Troy has suggested. A late fall early winter app of RU should do the trick, just make sure the woody plants are dormant.
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x2. Unless you area is huge, a 4 gallon backpack sprayer works great IME for killing off CSG under and around shrubbery.
 
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