Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Controlling unwanted plants Weed Burners

Does anyone have experience eradicating shoreline vegetation with weed burners?
Pros and Cons?

I have ordered a 500,00 BTU weedburner torch for application later in the summer when shoeline vegetation will be exposed, after nornmal summer drop in lake level.

I'll update results when appropriate.

George Glazener

George,

Here is the link I provided earlier.

http://www.flameengineering.com/Flame_Weeding.html

http://www.agronomy.ucdavis.edu/LTRAS/itech/flame.html

Here's another

http://www.tejassmokers.com/newproducts_page7.htm

I plan to use a burner here but haven't tried it yet. You don't actually "burn" the weeds, they are more "Scorched" which stops photosynthesis.

Chip

A quick bump and update on the subject of weed burners.

I used the 500K BTU Red Dragon from Flame Engineering this weekend and have to say that from all indications it works.

After two light passes around the edge of our pond all the treated areas are wilted and appear to be dying; much like the looks of glyphosphate treated vegetation after 5 or 6 days.

I'll repost after a week to let you know how it goes.

I would expect most plants to recover or at least resprout within a couple of weeks, but would think it would be a month or more before they begin to thrive again.
Sounds like an easy way to quickly stunt the growth of unwanted plants & prevent their spreading while leaving the underwater part of the plant for your fishes!

What about burning off cattails in the winter once they turn brown to reduce organic matter available before they wilt into the water? I am finding cattails are an effective shoreline barrier to herons but I don't want them contributing to fill in of the pond.

Chip, Cecil and others,

We tried the 500,000 BTU weed burner two weeks ago on a few “test areas, at water’s edge in low water conditions.

The broader leaf water primrose and bull tongue appear dead whereas the spike rush results are questionable.

The surprise results to date are the cattails.
The ones out of water “died’ quickly, but the surprise result of the ones in the water that we could reach, appear “dead”.

One test area was burning at the base of plant, and another burned the “catkins” only. The “catkin burn” appear dead as well.

More tests areas and observations will be necessary before conclusions drawn.

George Glazener

Good news George!
Thanks for the update!

But what about the roots? Won't they just grow back?

If you have a smaller pond with stone around the edges where weeds grow, you might try a smaller weed burner like I bought. It's only $34.95 from brookstone.com and uses small propane tanks. It's very light and the only problem I've ever had is sometimes the flame goes out. If I go around the pond once a week (takes about 1/2 hour) I can get the weeds when they're small and pretty much vaporize them.

Rocky,

I recently bought one of those but hadn't tried it out yet. Glad to read your report and thank you for it.

I used a 500,000 BTU weed burner last fall and the results were excellent. Most of the cat-tails around my pond were hand pulled, (ugh!) but one stand in particular was about 40 feet long and 10 feet wide running from shoreline to 6 feet of water. There were also willows in this stand. This stand had been the original stand which was there when the pond was put in in 1985 so they were rooted deeply so pulling just wasn't an option. I drew the water down by bottom siphoning and by the end of summer the water level had dropped 3 feet. When the willows wilted from frost I went out with the torch and burned them to the (reduced) water level. To date none have returned. It's interesting because the cat-tails which I pulled continue to sprout anew, not like they were, but they continue sprouting. The torched section is sprout free. Torching gets my vote.
One word of caution however, I live in a heavily wooded area and a large uncontrolled burn could easily be had with a torch putting out 500,000 BTU. I ignited a small section upwind and let it burn off the tops, slowly proceeding upwind until the tops were all burned away. Then I used the power of the gas torch to burn the unburned stalks to the water line without any fear of a run away blaze.

We did the weed burner thing on our rocky bank, it
work great to start, but during the summer when the weeds are really growing it is almost impossible to use it because it is just to darn hot. We are going to try a sickle mower attached to the tractor.

noble:

Check out Sickle bar report to see some pros and cons (actaully, a lot of cons) on sicklebars.

I picked up the Red Dragon a few weeks ago.. I have these clumps of grasses with hollow round stems that WOULD NOT DIE! I cut and I chopped and they kept coming back.. THey laughed at a week wacker because they were so thick.. I spent two hours going around the pond burning (as opposed to scorching) down to within an inch of ground level.. THe torch works great. I will see how it works when these grasses start growing again this spring.. I would recommend purchasing or fabricating a dolly to cart the propane tank around as it gets heavy and Frosty COLD!!

Randy, thanks for your update on the “weeedburner” experiment.

Shortly after starting the “weedburner” thread last year, we did not know that a “burn ban” would be imposed in our county for the remainder of the year to the present, due to the extreme drought in Texas.

My above post is somewhat now ironic:
“More tests areas and observations will be necessary before conclusions drawn.”

Since the water in pond has been down by about 4 ft, the short term solution to our cattail problem was solved by track hoe and dozer, depicted by the picture below:




We will “spot treat” cattails in the future with the weedburner.

George Glazener
N.E. Texas

Ps: Radar showing storms to the SW approaching our area – pray for rain….