HOW do I get rid of SAGEBRUSH?!!?

[Terri Watson]

This newsgroup had such a great thread about prarie dogs going that I
know there's a bunch of you out there that have dealt with this (by the
way, we shoot prarie dogs with .22 pistols in Wyoming and keep 'em
under control, even 700 dog villages! But that's another thread ---

I have 40 acres of rangeland with a nice (but small) spring fed stream
in the bottom. the whole drainage bottom'd be excellent pasture if you
could get rid of the sagebrush, a product of rampant overgrazing over
the last 30 years, I'm told.
ANYWAY, am fencing it off, it won't have anything grazing it for
awhile, and now I'm seeking the best way to eliminate the sagebrush.
Not sure if I have enough water to irrigate/flood it out; not real
experienced with results of burns; wondering if a brush hog will help
or if it could handle it (these is BIG sagebrushed!). Lots of folks
have given me ideas, but none of them have actually USED these ideas.
Any one out there have?

Post or write direct: terri_...@nols.edu

[Willy Cunningham]

when I was but a young lad my dad would pull sagebrush with
a saddle horse and a lariat. he would rope each one tie hard and fast
and have the horse back-up till the bush came up. easy onthe old man.
Good for the horse and bad for the sagebrush. this was 20-30 years ago
and the area
is still clear. Dont remove all the brush (leave little islands) so the

coyotes can sneak up on your picket pins and other vermin.

[Terri Watson]

In article <CyCpF...@nols.edu>
wi...@rmb.edu (Willy Cunningham) writes:

Know anyone that wants to come lasso 20 acres of sagebrush??? You free
this fall?

What happens if you try to take a brush-hog to it?

[David O. Laro]

In article <CyK7A...@nols.edu> terri-...@nols.edu (Terri Watson) writes:

>
>Know anyone that wants to come lasso 20 acres of sagebrush??? You free
>this fall?

Well, actually maybe! Where ARE you (how far do I have to drive?) I work
at this crazy place where people want to make Christmas trees from sagebrush,
but it can't be little doozy things!@ Need stuff four ft tall or so.

Found some blowing (sorry, tumbling) across the Interstate in west Texas
one year. Took a couple home with me and they went crazy. Now someone
dings me for some every year, but who would drive 300 miles on the off-chance
some sagebrush would blow by?

But no, not all twenty acres.

Why can't you just wait for it to tumble, like in the old movies?

David

[Ren Tescher]

In article <39ctj1$o...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu> dl...@lonestar.utsa.edu (David O. Laro) writes:
>In article <CyK7A...@nols.edu> terri-...@nols.edu (Terri Watson) writes:
>>Know anyone that wants to come lasso 20 acres of sagebrush??? You free
>>this fall?

>But no, not all twenty acres.
>
>Why can't you just wait for it to tumble, like in the old movies?

Actually Dave, the tumbling stuff is not sagebrush but tumbleweed,
a.k.a. Russian Thistle.
Russian Thistle grows only one season (perenial?) whereas sagebrush
is a shrub. I`ve some ol' sage get 6 feet or so tall and it has
a 4 inch trunk, probably tough to pull out with a horse.
My concern about pulling out old sage is the rattlers that like
to hang around in it.
ren
dona nobis pacem

[David O. Laro]

In article <39du0b$e...@ncar.ucar.edu> r...@rap.ucar.edu (Ren Tescher) writes:
>
>In article <39ctj1$o...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu> dl...@lonestar.utsa.edu (David O. Laro) writes:
>>In article <CyK7A...@nols.edu> terri-...@nols.edu (Terri Watson) writes:
>>>Know anyone that wants to come lasso 20 acres of sagebrush??? You free
>>>this fall?
>

>Actually Dave, the tumbling stuff is not sagebrush but tumbleweed,
>a.k.a. Russian Thistle.

Okay, I stand corrected.

>My concern about pulling out old sage is the rattlers that like
>to hang around in it.

But with rattlers around, I don't stand anywhere very LONG!
:-)

And, on the sagebrush, does this have the purple or lavender blossom
or does it even bloom?

David

[Linda Kinsel]

When I was a kid, we used to clear sagebrush with a tractor + disc (I think),
followed by a tractor + a chain for the stubborn ones (wrap the chain around
the trunk and pull...), followed by the kids gathering up all the loose pieces
into piles to be burned (this part I remember vividly). Generally, it took
more than one pass to get it all, but eventually we were able to convert
stands of sagebrush into alfalfa fields.

My folks's farm is pretty hilly in places, so there are still some areas
that remain sagebrush. We cut a nice big one down each year to use as a
Christmas tree. It had too big a trunk to fit in a normal-sized tree
holder, but a bucket with rocks worked fine to hold it up. They smell
wonderful (IMHO).

Linda

[Terri Watson]

In article <39f6gs$c...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu>

dl...@lonestar.utsa.edu (David O. Laro) writes:

> And, on the sagebrush, does this have the purple or lavender blossom
> or does it even bloom?

Well, the sagebrush from the original posting is in west-central
Wyoming (Lander, precisely), and is quite tall enough for xmas trees,
but would be strange. The rattlers just add to the sport of lasso and
pull...........

This sagebrush is actually of the genus Artemesia, or wormwoods ---
silvery leafed, very aromatic, and blooms with spikes of purple.
Common names are Big Brushy sage and Wyoming Silver Sage (Not to be
confused with Sage, edible!). It smells wonderful, esp. after a
cloudburst, and is pretty --
but still want to get the 20 acre bottom cleared out for pasture.

If anyone wants to come gather it free, I'll give you a trailer to camp
in....

[Pie...@fwva.saic.com]

dl...@lonestar.utsa.edu (David O. Laro) writes:

I think you are confusing "tumble weed" with "sage brush", BIG difference.

[Sullys Maze]

In article <3357...@MVB.SAIC.COM>,

--------
And, just for trivia's sake, how many of you know that tumbleweed is
not native to North America? It is from Mongolia.

Karen

[faverj...@gmail.com]

Before my Grandpa died we used to go out and shoot them prairy dogs and they always hid under them sagebush so we began pulling them of the the horse but when he got a ATV we used that to pull them out just wrapped a chain around the bush then hooked her up to the 4 wheeler and pulled that bush strait out

[paul stiles]

Here's a unique and different idea! This may seem like a crazy idea even, but in the long run it could be very interesting and helpful; but if you were to find someone who has a nuisance beaver on their property then you could relocate it to your property and even with the low amount of water it will flood out the sage brush and also provide great grazing area in the late summer. People tend to underestimate beavers and how impactful their work can be on a watershed, turning even a small creek into a seasonal wetland with lots of grasses and forbs. If you don't know anyone personally who has a beaver problem then you can easily find people online who would love to get rid of a few of their beavers. Since you do have a small creek though, the beaver may need some enticing to stick around; so what you would do is build its first dam for it (called a BDA or beaver dam analogue). This may seem like a big pain but its actually good because it means you get to be the one to choose where the beaver makes its pond, which could help prevent any unwanted areas from becoming flooded.

If this idea interests you there's lot of info online on how to go about this process! Here's some good pages
https://www.beavercoalition.org/guidebook
https://www.beaverinstitute.org/management/stream-restoration/