# Canadian Thistle in Alfalfa/Grass



## purdue_boilermaker (Sep 20, 2011)

I have a field that has a good stand of alfalfa and orchard grass, with one corner that has a steadily increasing patch of canadian thistle (thanks to a neighbors unkept burn pile near the fencerow). Overall, the area of thistle covers about 1/2 acre, enough to be a real pain and lead to some frustrating loss. Ideally, I would like to be able to find a product to spray this area to eliminate the thistle, but not lose the alfalfa/grass stand that we have.

So, was looking for some recommendations on herbicide options and timing of application. I know herbicides that fit my criteria will be limited, but what have you used with success in the past? From reading older posts and some university studies, seems like Pursuit may be an option, but control of thistle is not the greatest. Appreciate any thoughts and recommendations anyone has.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

Buctril maybe a option.About same control as Pursuit.I would think Pursuit would be easier on the alfalfa.

We used to use Basagran on soybeans for canadian thistle and worked great.Looked it up and its labeled for clover but not alfalfa.


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## carcajou (Jan 28, 2011)

CANADA thistle guys, as in CANADA goose. "Canadian" thistle would imply illegal border crossers, fugitives, returning ISIS fighters and Syrian refugees that would not fight for their own country. We take damn near everyone and call them "Canadian", except hard working, law abiding, trained tradespeople. These we call "NOT WANTED". $^&*^%$ useless Prime Minister we have ATM. This too shall pass............


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

carcajou said:


> CANADA thistle guys, as in CANADA goose. "Canadian" thistle would imply illegal border crossers, fugitives, returning ISIS fighters and Syrian refugees that would not fight for their own country. We take damn near everyone and call them "Canadian", except hard working, law abiding, trained tradespeople. These we call "NOT WANTED". $^&*^%$ useless Prime Minister we have ATM. This too shall pass............


Our Canadian thistles cross borders from neighboring fields from the wind illegally.So that would make them Canadian,correct??

Good luck with your Canadian Obama,


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## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

purdue_boilermaker said:


> I have a field that has a good stand of alfalfa and orchard grass, with one corner that has a steadily increasing patch of canadian thistle (thanks to a neighbors unkept burn pile near the fencerow). Overall, the area of thistle covers about 1/2 acre, enough to be a real pain and lead to some frustrating loss. Ideally, I would like to be able to find a product to spray this area to eliminate the thistle, but not lose the alfalfa/grass stand that we have.
> 
> So, was looking for some recommendations on herbicide options and timing of application. I know herbicides that fit my criteria will be limited, but what have you used with success in the past? From reading older posts and some university studies, seems like Pursuit may be an option, but control of thistle is not the greatest. Appreciate any thoughts and recommendations anyone has.


Have had problem with CT (also from neighbor's as a starting point). One thing that CT can't seem to stand (at least in MY area), is cutting BEFORE going to seed (which is alfalfa in bud stage or real early bloom stage). I cut about every 30 days, which seems to be before CT sets flowers (they might be budding however). Doesn't seem to come back from the cut stalk most of the time and by the third cutting they are gone. I'm cutting low also (less than 3").

Only problem is the seed bank sometimes seems awful deep, but over time I'm winning. And I spray as far as I can with a hand sprayer on the neighbors side of the fence line. Being I'm no-tilling biggest problem is usually in newly seed fields (I seed late summer also).

Larry


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

I cut them out by hand with a machete and a pair of welder's gloves. Cut at ground level. If the plant has bloomed, cut the bloom off and burn it--it can go to seed even after being cut off.

Takes a few years, but getting ahead of it is important.

Ralph


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

rjmoses said:


> I cut them out by hand with a machete and a pair of welder's gloves. Cut at ground level. If the plant has bloomed, cut the bloom off and burn it--it can go to seed even after being cut off.
> 
> Takes a few years, but getting ahead of it is important.
> 
> Ralph


Same here.


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## FarmerCline (Oct 12, 2011)

swmnhay said:


> Buctril maybe a option.About same control as Pursuit.I would think Pursuit would be easier on the alfalfa.
> 
> We used to use Basagran on soybeans for canadian thistle and worked great.Looked it up and its labeled for clover but not alfalfa.


 No experience with thistle but I have used Basagran in alfalfa to control yellow nutsedge with good success. Not on label for alfalfa but the clover label was close enough for me. Speckled some of the young leaves a little bit but other than didn't appear to hurt it. Won't hurt the grass either.

Hayden


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

FarmerCline said:


> No experience with thistle but I have used Basagran in alfalfa to control yellow nutsedge with good success. Not on label for alfalfa but the clover label was close enough for me. Speckled some of the young leaves a little bit but other than didn't appear to hurt it. Won't hurt the grass either.
> Hayden


years ago I sprayed some thistles I alfalfa on edge of field just to try it.It was a small area maybe 1000 sq ft.It worked fine.But yea it's not labeled.So the BASF rep happened to be in the farm store one day so I asked him about it.He said it costs to much to get EPA approval for every crop for every chemical.So they would have a hard time recouping the approval costs from a crop that may not be used on very many acres.He said it may cost millions to get approval for each crop.

Yea ago I used basagran on soybeans spot spraying Canadian Thistle and yellow nutsedge.Worked great on both.


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## purdue_boilermaker (Sep 20, 2011)

Thanks for the recommendations, looks like I have a couple new options to look into. Agree with several of you that manual removal is a very effective method, but the patch thickened significantly last year, and I gave up on that route...

Hoping to get a jump on them this year with a herbicide, and will come back to manually remove any that make it through.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

I would guess its a never ending seed bank,otherwise just cutting it 3-4 times a yr with normal cutting schedule they would be gone in a yr or 2


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## hayray (Feb 23, 2009)

2-4d ester weedone smokes Canada thistle, but kills everything but grass. Use anything else like Raptor, Pursuit, Velpar, Butyrac and you are just wasting your money. Ester is cheap..


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