Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Property Projects & Construction thousands of tiny pine trees

My new pond is completely surrounded by a pine tree thicket. Trees are all at least 50 ft from the pond but have already covered my ponds banks with thousands and thousands of tiny pine tree seedling plants. Some I will be able to mow down but most are on too steep an incline. Would take for ever to pull each one up by hand and each year I assume there will be more. My question is...how tall do they need to be before cutting them off at the ground and kill the plant?? Many are about 4=6 inches tall. If they are mowed down will they grow back or will it kill the plant?? They are growing all the way down to the ponds edge. This is a 2 acre pond. Any suggestions or advise how to control these trees???

Chances are they will grow back.... someway or another not sure if it would work but if you could mow the ones you can and take a weed eater to the others then spray something on them that may kill them and not hurt your pond water?

Doesn't sound like the problem is going away anytime soon though with all the bigger pine around there you will have to keep maintaining it every year I bet!

RC

I've never noticed a pine seedling continue to grow after the top is cut off...

I have the same situation at my place, just with maples rather than pines. You just have to treat it like a maintenance item.

Best solution I've found to keep them controlled is burning off the pond bank every year in late winter before new growth starts. The saplings are small enough that in most instances they burn up along with the grasses/cattails/etc.

For those few that don't I just cut them down.

Here's another vote for doing a controlled burn in late winter/early spring on the pond edge. That's a good way to get rid of the dead plant matter in areas that can't be cut.

Do the burn before plants start to put out new growth for the upcoming year.

Thanks everyone. I thought of burning but am so proud of what grass I do have growing I hated to burn it down.

IME no worries about your grass. If it is well established, it will grow right back from the roots.

That's how the great prairies of the Midwest stay prairies. Controlled burns every few years kills the trees and brush. In warm season grass fields here, we try to burn every other year.

I have done three burns at different locations on my place. One burn under a pine plantation, the burn went as I wanted, but I worried the whole time it might get out of hand and burn my neighbors place down. My second burn did not go as well as the first due to gusting winds that started after the burn was lit up. it was pretty exciting to say the least, but we managed to keep it under control. 3rd burn went easy peazy. I contacted the fire dept and sheriff because it was going to be a large fire. And prior to doing the first burn, I contacted two different fire stations to make them aware I was going to do a burn. They acted as though they wanted no contact with me or the burn. I think they wanted to be as far away as possible in case there was a blame game. Flame burning in E. Texas may cause a little uneasy feeling when lighting it up, lots of forest down your way

Tracy

Missouri advocates for burning 1/3 of your land EVERY year, especially timbered areas to keep downed limbs and leaf litter at a minimum.

Our game biologist advocates burning 1/3 every year also

What esshup says about the time of year to burn is very important. Burns the wrong time of year can severely damage certain types of grasses. Fescue or native Bluestem are the two I am familiar with, and burning either one after significant spring growth can stunt the grass for that year or in extreme cases kill it.

Burn when the grass is in the dormant stage, if grass survival is important for the area to be burned.

Also, burning late in the spring when there is lots of new growth creates LOTS of smoke. I have seen the highway in front of our house closed by the Highway Patrol when a careless cigarette started a ditch fire and the wind blew the smoke across the road so bad cars could not see to safely pass through it. Lots of green grass with a thick undergrowth of old dead grass = lots of smoke.

I'm always on pins and needles when doing any type of burn. No matter how small it is. I have at the very least a 25 gallon sprayer hooked up and near the flame. I watch the weather carefully and really pay attention to the wind. Whenever possible I do a back burn, to create a barrier around the outside of what will be the main part of the burn, or if that is not possible, I try to burn into what little wind there is, NOT with the wind.

I hate burning because I know how easily it can get out of hand, but I also realize that it's a VERY good tool to use.

This winter will be my second controlled burn along the steep banks of my pond, thanks to the help and advice I got here on the forum, namely Esshup and Sprkplug with a great formula of Regular and diesel gas mixture.

I mixed it in a 3 gal tank sprayer and on the correct day cleared the entire area (about 300') in a little over an hour. And with the pond frozen, I could just walk along the bank, spray and burn.

I never knew that area could look so good and it was such a PITA to try and clear it by hand!

As far as the mixture, I want someone else to confirm, but I think it was 1 gal of regular gas with 2 gallons of diesel.

Very cool, very easy, and kinda fun too

Pines, even small ones, won't grow back if you clip them off close to the ground.

I'm not really sure on the mix. It's a black art. If the flame starts to walk back up the stream to the nozzle, there's too much gasoline. If it won't spread out relatively fast when you spray it, there's too much diesel.