Blackberries along a creek

[Bluetongue]

If you were to advise someone as to the most effective method of eradicating blackberries along their creekline, what would you say? Assuming that this person does not have, nor do they wish to gain, training to handle chemicals safely (ruling out Garlon and its ilk).

We have some literature, and would like to hear from those of you with experience before deciding.

Thanks!

[eataust]

Goats??

Creeks are a problem because the blackberries are probably holding the banks stable, so you can't just go ripping them out without replacing it with something else. You could consider burning it to the ground (but leaving the root system to retain bank stability), planting a large bunch of native and/or fast-growing things in the ashes, and manually ripping out the blackberry regrowth as it came up with the new other plant growth. Depending on what you replant with, eventually it might out-compete the blackberry. (I'd suggest native raspberry but I'm not so sure you wouldn't be replacing one tedious prickly thing with another!!).

Non-chemical eradication of blackberry is, unfortunately, a process that takes years. Grazing animals that stomp and chomp new growth can help with this, depending on what one's position on hooved mammals on Australian soil is!

You could combine the burn/slash to the ground with weedmats, interplanted with fast-growing plants to compete with the blackberry, and slow tall plants to eventually shade it out.

My experience with blackberries is, however, based around very large "domestic" (1/4 acre!!) bushes, and having people around to yank out seedlings as they came back up.

[Bluetongue]

Thanks EA - nice to see you here

Sorry I wasn't very clear about herbicide. Garlon is one of the herbicides that are particularly effective against blackberry, but in this state you need to have completed specialised herbicide handling training (ChemCert?), so often contractors are engaged when it's use is required.
On the other hand Glyphosate ('RoundUp' etc) can be used by any Jo Bloggs, but isn't necessarily the right thing to use for the more stubborn weeds... or you need to use a different technique when using it, to make it more effective. I'd be interested in success stories using that - maybe the 'Biactive' version (supposedly less toxic to aquatic creatures).

Blackberry is also one of those things that seem to be able to compete against any other plant, so 'competition' as a strategy probably isn't the way to go.

I'm interested in the 'burn' approach - maybe we could enlist the CFA as support if that's an effective option. Is that one you've tried, EA?

[clare_b74]

Hey BT,

Hmmm, for what it's worth we've been using Garlon - *very* judciously applied - to very good effect on our blackberry-infested creek (and everywhere else!). We don't need certification to use, but I'm more concerned about residue build-up... Round-Up and its compadres aren't effective at all. We can't use goats due to our heritage agreement (no hoof-beasts of any kind) but I'd be skeptical in a creek anyway as they'd just pummel the banks even further into disrepair. Not to mention the on-going nightmare of a now-nicely-manured seedbank....

So really, I'd second EA's burning suggestion, particularly since we were doing a property show-off to the local Landcare honcho the other day and he suggested it himself (much to my horror and my arsonist-tendancies partner's delight ).

Good luck!
C

[eataust]

I think we fired blackberry bushes on the paddock next to ours, but not on the block that we laboriously cleared by hand. I was in my early teens and hacked myself a lovely tunnel UNDER the blackberries, appeared at the fence at the other side, and slashed myself a tunnel back out again. Fun for about an hour, painful and backbreaking for the next four or so ... in the end, a rake was more effective than anything else.

My parents are bushfire brigade members so we probably did do some judicious burning. I mostly remember that when we finally reduced the blackberry to stumps and turned the land into an extension of our back garden, for many years we were instructed to pull any blackberry shoots out by the root. As we tended to wander around barefoot (funnelweb spiders and snakes notwithstanding), we tended to find the buggers pretty quickly :)

Blackerries sucker, but if you can find one of the main taproots and get ALL of it out, you've reduced regrowth by a good 80%. The catch is the taproots can be incredibly deep and huge on old groves, and anything left will eventually come back again. Maybe a very careful use of pesticide on any exposed deep root might help there?

Blackberries aren't so fond of shade. If you can eventually shade any regrowth with spreading treets, you can keep the shoot growth to a manageable speed and size.

What's being planned to replace the blackberry, do you know?

[Bluetongue]

Wow, thanks for all that! It's for 'a friend of a friend' and I've not even seen the site, but I'm assuming since it's a Landcare contact that they'll want to revegetate the creek with natives. Big assumption - will let you know when I do

[spottedquoll]

Personally I've found horses to be good for blackberry control, they just love the young growth. Slash the blackberry down with a brush-hook and let the horses do the rest. Did that at a friends place and now no more blackberries.

Wouldn't recommend goats as your fences need to be much more secure than are needed with horses.

I've tried cutting & painting with good ol' roundup but hasn't proved to be all that effective, spraying can work but alongside creeks is always something to be wary of (your herbicide needs to be registered for waterways).

Digging out is a slow and laborious process.

The most important thing with any weeding is follow up, never assume you've gotten it all in the first hit.

Paul

[prier]

The way we've been doing it at work is a really time consuming way but it's been working really well.

First we go through with brush cutters and take the entire top layer off all the blackberries leaving about six inches of each plant. Then we slowly work our way down the creek manually taking out the blackberries with mini matocks, and replanting native grass's and water plants where we've removed blackberries, making sure there's nearly always new native plants where we removed the weeds.

[spottedquoll]

Yep, done far too much of that one myself, can be quite effective given the skill, dedication and enthusiasm of the weeders and of course follow up, follow up, follow up.........