Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations #$%$#&% Cattails

I've had it with the cattails in my warmwater pond. I erradicated them once before and when I turned my back voila they're back in full force. My brother-in-law and I are having a -ell of a time removing them from my .62 acre pond but we will prevail! My weed cutter and weed rake are getting one heck of a work out not to mention our arms.

From now on they will get zapped with herbicide whent hey start poking out of the water next spring. No if, and, or buts!

Word of warning to those of you who don't know. There is NO just a few cattails just like they is no such thing as just a little bit pregnant! They will try and conquer your pond if you let them! NO MORE!

CB1 :

I had good results with habitat on cattails this summer. I sprayed them with a mid-range mix of it and h2o and soap. If there are not to many you could mix some and paint it on with a brush and avoid spraying. It is not fast but it gets the job done and they have not come back. You do have to be careful around other plants and trees. ewest

Damn straight. Cattails and willows and poplars in my pond are under death sentence, regularly enforced. I pull 'em up when I see 'em or cut 'em off (repeatedly, with extreme prejudice) if I can't get' em pulled out. This has managed to keep them from getting a beachhead to expand from.

There's a small (1/5 acre?) pond a quarter mile from me, went in a year after mine. They spend a lot of effort landscaping around it (it is in their back yard, I honestly thought it was going to be a swimming pool when they started excavating) and putting up elaborate seasonal outdoor displays, but they have never pulled a cattail or a willow since day one. The shoreline is now 50% cattails and 20% willows, and spreading.

I have a question about those *&&%$#$ cattails.
Since my pond is very low right now all of the cattails are out of the water. I pulled a bunch out, roots and all. Got tired so I cut the rest down and they seem to be about dead. Would it be okay to spray with Habitat now that they are cut?

Ewest,

I will probably apply the herbicide with a wet rag by dragging over the plants to prevent overspray. But then again I may do both depending on the situation. I do have some very small spike bullrush that I don't want to kill, and some type of water grass that grows thick around the pond edges that I like. The soap and water sounds interesting but I do have a surfactant I can use.

Pondrookie,

You're better off spraying them when they are NOT cut, so you have more suface area that the herbicide can penetrate. Lots of times (depends on the time of year) if you cut them the stem will grow back just like the grass you cut with a lawnmower. Another thing, just cutting off the exposed plant leaves the rhizome, and new shoots will come up. You need to apply a herbicide that penetrates the leaves and stems and works its way to the rhizome to kill the whole plant(s). Many of the plants can be interconnected at the rhizomes. They not only reproduce by the seeds, but by the rhizomes (runners). They are a very hardy prolific plant. I've seen them grow back at least 10 inches in one day after I cut them. Moose antlers when in velvet are supposed to be the fasters growing living material. I think cattails have them beat.

Theo's method of just pulling and cutting works fine if you don't have a lot and you can stay on top of them, and of course you don't mind doing so. However the herbicide is more permanent and too me much easier.

I hate to tell you this, but your pulling was probably in vain. If any roots broke and didn't come out entirely, they will spring up again next year.

We have experimented on a very small test area with a weedburner with good results.

The small patch tested within a larger population appear to be dead at this time.
We are in a "no-burn" area due to extreme drought conditions and will test further when conditions improve.

Will dried cattails exposed due to low water, return with normal water levels?

George Glazener
N.E. Texas 1/4 acre and 2 acre ponds

My thoughts on cattails are somewhat different...and necessitated by a desire to avoid chemicals.

If you remove the soil they prefer, you will never have cattails. They prefer loose rich humus soil. If you remove, and granted that is not always possible nor easy, soil to the clay you will never be plagued with them again...at least until your muck builds back up after several years.

Pondrookie, if you can get a back-hoe in there while the water levels are down and remove that humus to the clay, you will solve your cattail problem....at least it works for me and no chemicals.

Cecil, your story is discouraging. A couple of years ago you posted about digging up your cattails. When I got them, I did the same and they haven't come back.

I thought you had all the answers. My bubble is burst. Please say it ain't so.

A California story: I dug them out with a big backhoe, I cut them and slashed them, I burned them in the winter - 50 foot flames, really scary!!! I poisoned them and cut and burned them some more. Spent more money than I care to think about. I now live with them and keep a small area clear for access. My pond is healthy and still producing very large bluegills and most recently a 27" LMB. Don't know what it weighed, but it was real heavy and is still swimming in the pond. I guess the bottom line in some ponds is that you may only be able to exercise a certain amount of control of them. Plus side is that they offer great hiding spots for the fry and they are great water purifiers. Good luck all!

That must have been when I had the pond "dipped" with a track excavator. It did work for a while but that was quite a mess and the excavated soil had to sit around for a while before the excavator came back and spread it out so I could reseed.

I too pulled mine (last year) and NONE came back. Where the ground was to rocky to pull, they haven't been able to noticably spread.

You can come trap a nutria from my pond and they will do the work for you. They can mow them down in a matter of days. then you just have to deal with them like I am having to.

I may be nuts, but I just spread cattail seeds on about 1/4 of the shoreline of my newly enlarged pond (1A now). My main worry right now is with heavy rain washing the raw dirt into my pond. I spend some time every spring cutting back emerging cattails on about 1/2 the shoreline, and they usually stay back for the rest of the year. The other half of the shoreline is wildlife domain. The cattails provide protection and breeding ground for minnows and other little fish, and the bass know it. They patrol the edges and pounce on their prey.

As the un-seasoned rookie in the presence of pond-Lords, please forgive my plea to return to fundamentals. Are there depths of water where cattails can no longer exist? I am very interested since my upcoming project will have shallow areas.

I never see cattails embedded in water deeper than about 18 inches. I'm not sure if my pond is a good representation since my water levels fluctuate wildly during the year.

In favorable softer bottom soils, I commonly see cattails growing in 3 ft of water depth.

I'll bet Bill's numbers are more representative of typical conditions than mine. My water level drops 5-6 feet during the winter and takes until first of July to fill. I think my cattails are in a constant state of shock.

I've actually seem them in at least 5 feet of water and sticking out another three feet or more. Don't underestimate these plants. They could make it on the moon.

I had an isoltated row in about 5 feet of water that I ended up spraying and then cutting off. They never came back. Downside was it was a big bluegill magnet.

I am with CB1 on the @#*&%+*^ cattails. Not only will they grow out from shore they will create their own shore (matted roots and old stems) from which to grow out further. In addition they will spread around to other shallow water by seeds floating on the water until they find a spot to root. I will find other plants like pondweed to help the fish. ewest

Uh oh, not sounding so good on the water depth thing. I was kinda operating on the "no weeds after about 48" and deeper" theory. Sounds like cattails are in a cat-egory of their own. So, what does the rook' do in preparation to fight this menace? My shallow areas have only been cleared of timber and are comprised of run-off silty topsoil for about 3 - 4 feet, then clay. My plan is to keep the shoreline sharp at about 3:1, 4' deep at the perimeter, sloping to about 6' deep average (this is in an area of about 1 acre). (I planned to cut in some bottom-scaping in this area...perhaps a shelf or two parallel to the shore as the bottom runs off deeper?)

My experience with cattails is limited to Ohio. As an aquatic applicator we have managed them for some years with very good results with varied means. As far as water depth and soils go 3-4 ft seem to be the max and 1 ft of water common and spreading up shore lines several feet is common also.I have them in poor compacted soils and loose rich soils but shallow water always seems to be key. I have had customers try to dig them out with backhoes and skid loaders only to suppress them for a season or so. I find most herbicide failures due to wrong timing or wrong if any surfactant used.Glyposate(roundup) type products often are sprayed prior to full leaf elongation and seed head formation and usually does not kill the below ground portion with this mistiming.Cutting off the above water or ground portion within 4-6 weeks after spraying is also a problem. In the midwest spraying late in the fall with any product and getting a good frost or freeze within 4-5 weeks will also allow new growth next season.Also cats usually have mature plants and young plants growing side by side and is difficult to keep spray off of the young ones and this leads to regrowth later in the season. The window for glyphosate is kind of narrow. Diquat products (Reward, Weedtrine D) can be sprayed anytime you see green tissue but you will have to stay on them as more are usually going to emerge soon. This is our first year with a Habitat label from BASF in Ohio and we have about 3 acres of cats sprayed to observe the longterm effect. We also have Habitat sprayed beside glyphosate in the same pond for regrowth comparison next spring. Varied rates of Habitat(2-3 and 4 pt per acre) and different surfactants (nonionic vs veg oil MSO) are also sprayed to compare.The AI in Habitat for you soybean farmers is very similar to Pursuit and the type of surfactant is critical to the weed target in soy production so will see if it is a factor on cats.We manage some ponds where the owner wants them in certain areas only and I think they are fairly easy to keep contained,key being to stay on top of them with whatever method you use.The biggest failure I have wittnessed is wanting Amurs to have an effect, most know they arent going to be a factor but do see from time to time pond owners overstocking Amurs in hopes they will work on the cat population.Have not had it work to date.Lastly I get calls 3-5 weeks after we have sprayed any product that some cats are turning brown and some of the same visual maturity are not.Some are just tougher than others and may be the difference in which are male and which are female, Im guess'n the females are the tough ones,how bout you. Everyone have a great Thanksgiving and as always "Good Luck" Ted

Habitat is the herbicide to use along a pond edge if you want to denude the edge. Cattail, willow, grass and practically every other plant will be affected, and the control seems to span months. In early summer, I applied Habitat to the pond edge and around seldom used farm equipment. No regrowth of any plant species has occurred. While Habitat acts more slowly than glyphosate, the end result seems more dramatic. I don't know how mats of pondweed, smartweed, water primrose or waterlily would be affected, but I certainly wouldn't expect plant survival.

Habitat is relatively expensive but well worth the price if you want absolute plant control.

I agree. I used Habitat last summer on several types of plants. It worked well on cattails -- all dead and no reemergence so far. It also took out the willows and a small patch (2 x 2 ft) grass at the boat landing (oooppps ). It has not worked well with the pondweed and it is not labeled to do so. If will flat kill a long list of trees and weeds and grasses so be careful and read and follow the instructions. ewest

Yes, the depth for your pond depends on clarity of your water, and how deep the sunlite can penetrate. To keep the cattail zone as narrow as possible, make the banks steeper. For my needs, I like going as flat as possible to the water's edge, so I can easily use a lawnmower. Than go steep to limit the band of cattails, to about 3 feet. I have lot of suspended clay, so that is deep enough, and just about the right depth for the bluegill beds. Of course, than there is the 2 ft level drop between summer and winter...