grazing Canada Thistle

[grassfarmer]

Could you post a link to the article Ken? It wasn't immediately obvious to me which article you were highlighting.
Thanks.

[brokenhill]

The following is an article on one producer's experience in grazing Canada thistle. It's not scientific but does provide some practical insight. Thanks.

http://www.holisticmanagement.org/n9/Education/InPractice_Archives/Keen_on_Grass.pdf

[wilagro]

grassfarmer: You do it your way and I will do it mine. I got a 99% kill by spraying a bad infestation of thistle in late August with a 2 litre to the acre application of Roundup and tillage three weeks later. You have to follow the manufacturers suggestions or yes you will never eliminate it.

My cattle would not eat thistle except in the drought years when there NOTHING else for them to eat.

I would say that I was very happy to eliminate the problem and can produce far more forage from clean land.

[littledoggie]

Thistle isn't a big problem for us but the odd patch appears. We put a salt block on any new patch we find and the cows tend to pulverize it out of existence.

[grassfarmer]

Each to their own method Wilagro. Spraying followed by tillage seems an unnecessary expense to me when a herd of trained cows would eat them and benefit from the nutrition in the process.
You are still only treating a symptom not the problem with the Monsanto and metal approach.
With proper grazing management we can treat both at the same time and the only cost is the management time.

As littledoggie suggests compaction is an excellent way to kill out small patches of thistle.

[wilagro]

I guess my cows couldn't be trained to eat thistle but I did train them to come when I called...a little trick I learned from my Dad.

[grassfarmer]

I bet Kathy Voth could train your cows. Check out:
http://www.cfc.umt.edu/cesu/NEWCESU/Assets/Newsletters/2009/COWS%20EAT%20WEEDS.pdf

[wilagro]

Perhaps she could...interesting article...although I don't have any thistles to feed now as I killed them with the RoundUp.

[coppertop]

my donkeys will not choose thistle if they
have other grasses. They seem to like the
grass under trees or along the fence, but
as far as using them to control thistle
from what I have seen with my little donkey
herd I would tend to choose the spraying
method.