Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire My war on poison ivy

Glyphosate mixed according to label instructions will kill it, and just about anything else. Tractor Supply sells their 41% concentrate for $10/quart. It may kill plants a little slower than Roundup brand, but at 1/3 the cost, I can wait. I found out last year that there is a glyphosate-resistant horseweed in some areas; unfortunately the horseweed around my place is the resistant variety.

I've only got about an acre that I'm having to work on. My problem is, it's also covered with honeysuckle bushes. I want to cut the honeysuckle bushes, but the ground under them is carpeted with poison ivy.

I've got to get rid of the poison ivy first.

I fight poison oak on our property, but use a much weaker dose of glysophate - about 4 ounces per gallon plus a sticker. I want the plant to die slowly so it has more time to get to the roots. If I go to a higher concentration I find that the leaves burn off quickly, it doesn't get all the way to the roots and it just comes back a year later.

When my daughter was a 4H kid we had goats. They killed every broadleaf on the place except goatweed. Poison ivy was completely eliminated.

Mix glyphosate and 2,4D together, at the strong rates.
They work on different plants, different ways,
But they each support the other, a 1-2 punch.

Both can be bought cheap at your local farm garden store.

Get some goats.

I’ve had it a few times, not a fun time!

Roundup and 2-4-d kills with one application.

Nobody's mentioned puttin a little dish soap in the glyph mix yet, so I'll throw it in here.

1/4 cup in your 2 gallon sprayer will enhance the effectiveness of the spray, makin it go farther.

Add the water first, then concentrate then soap, so it don't foam up while mixin it.

Poison oak out here. My BIL uses el cheapo bleach from Walmart. Says it works.

That's the ticket. Glyphosate is mostly a grass killer. 2-4-d works better on broad-leafs.
2-4-d by itself will probably kill the ivy and won't kill any grass.

Guess I must have a natural resistance to poison ivy and such because I've been in and all around it countless times in my life and so far have never had any reaction from it whatsoever,

Many people seem to be immune like that. Then one day they get in the stuff and it nails them. Apparently a susceptibility slowly builds up in the body then bang, you get hit.

I got it horribly bad as a kid. Always had a span during the summer when some part of me looked like I had massive chemical burns. Eyes swelled shut, fingers swollen to half again their normal size and covered in blisters, legs raw and weeping, terrible stuff.

Then in my late teens I seemed to have built a resistance and rarely had a reaction and when I did it was just a few bumps or a mild rash.

Now after I’d moved to a poison ivy free zone for 10 years and came back home I seem to get it just as badly as when I was a little guy. Guess my resistance went away since I wasn’t using it.

I'm not allergic to poison ivy or mosquitos, but I get a rash from brushing up against a Christmas tree. Go figure.

The

The glyphosate seems to be killing it fairly well. I don't expect it to be permanent, however. Right now I just want to get it knocked down enough so that I can cut some trees in the fall.

I know you still have to be careful around it when it's dead, but I'm just working to keep it from taking over, at this point. I expect it to be an annual ritual.

Next year I'll go after it with 2-4-D. But this year I'm about 85% through it and still have a lot of glyphosate to use up.

I appreciate the info.

There's one place out back about 20' X 8' that was just a carpet of poison ivy. It's right beside a tree that I need to take down. That patch is what made me decide to start fighting it every place I see it. It was over grown with light brush when I bought the place. I started mowing it and had it cleared out pretty good. But then it covered over with poison ivy.

I just went scorched earth on it. I think it's going to be a dirt patch for a year or so.

Poison ivy berries are a common food source for birds, which often leads to the seeds being deposited under trees, powerlines, etc. and resulting in poison ivy hot spots.

Tractor Supply glypho has surfactants in it.
Soap enhances herbicide, until it hurts.