Eradicating Box Elder Trees

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Forgive me if I 've misspelled the name OR if this has already been addressed and is in the archives. We have a lot of these trees and they just keep on growing. We've looked at stump removal chemicals, but they are just that, chemicals! If you cut down the trees, the stumps just reproduce and then there are two or more trees. Does anyone know of a simple, economical way for us to rid our land of this weed?

-- Ardie from WI (a6203@hotmail.com), May 03, 2001

Answers

Sorry to bring bad news, but when we lived in WI we just had to keep on cutting. Try timing it so that the seeds don't mature. We never eliminated ours. You could try burning the stumps with a good fire in a burn barrel (55 gal steel drum with holes drilled in the sides).

-- David C (fleece@eritter.net), May 03, 2001.

I'll bet you could sell the wood... Believe it or not there are places that will buy it... They might help with the stumps, too.

If you know someone with an auger, drill out the center of the stumps (DEEP as you can) and add a good amount of copper sulfate. Same stuff used to mordant dyes. Copper will kill the tree, root and all. Don't do this near water, though, as copper will also kill fish (hence no throwing pennies in stocked fountains...)

-- Sue Diederich (willow666@rocketmail.com), May 03, 2001.


Hello Ardie, I have heard that if you drill a good size hole down through the stump and pack it with coarse salt, that it will kill the heart of the stump and keep it from growing. I have not tried this myself but, others have told me this is an option instead of stump removal. Sincerely, Ernest

-- http://communities.msn.com/livingoffthelandintheozarks (espresso42@hotmail.com), May 03, 2001.

IN REGARDS TO THE POST ABOUT USING COPPER SULPHATE[BLUESTONE].IT WAS USED AS A LOG PRESERVATIVE AND AN AGRICULTURAL FUNGICIDE .UNTIL LOTS OF VINYARD WORKERS WERE HAVEING LIVER FAILURE[3-7 YEARS EXPOSURE]. IT HAS BEEN DEEMED AS TOXIC AND NOT SAFE TO TOUCH.PLAY IT SAFE AND CONSULT WITH A SIVERCULTURE SPECIALIST OR WITH SOMEONE AT YOUR LOCAL FORESTRY DEPARTMENT. CORDWOODGUY

-- cordwoodguy (cordwoodguy@n2teaching.com), May 06, 2001.

Perhaps the box elders in WI are different than those here in TN, but my cattle love box elder leaves. Goats would likely also. Perhaps you can use them to keep suckers cleaned off. Sooner or later the stump will die.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), May 07, 2001.


If you want to rid yourself of any tree that becomes troublesum, Cut the larger ones, and you can use a product called Garlon on anything under 6" in diameter. You spray it around the bottom 18" of the tree and it will kill it, you may see some root suckers for one year after but if you spray them also you can rid yourself of the problem.

-- Paul Marohn (Treewizard@buffalo.com), June 27, 2001.

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