How to kill Horsetails

[Southtown]

Originally Posted by alternety

I want them to die. Screaming if possible.

I like this guy already.

[alternety]

The horsetails are not in an "aquatic" area. They like damp; but they are not fanatics about it. I have some nice stands on top of a 12' high pile of dirt on top of a 25' above grade fill. And this has been the driest spring/summer recorded. The AS material is also not particularly harmful to invertebrates and fish either. Sources vary, and excerpts mislead. It was recommended for watershed use because of minimal toxicity for birds, bees, deer, and others and decomposition into harmless compounds.

I am not really interested in a prolonged debate on the material. I have spent a lot of time understanding it. Nothing here has been new information to me. I just want to buy some.

[freeztar]

Originally Posted by alternety

I just want to buy some.

So, no go on the "making it" aspect?

[CraigD]

Welcome to hypography, alternety, and best of luck with you weed-exterminating plot!

Originally Posted by alternety

I have done many many hours of searching. I need an industrial supplier that will sell small (for them) quantities. I have found none willing to do so. If someone knows of such a source, not just a manufacturer, but one who actually sells to civilians in small quantities, that would solve my problem.

I see what you mean about Ammonium sulfamate herbicide being hard to find

Although lots of gardening how-to sites state that you can get it “any home improvement or gardening store”, (not only as a weed-killer, but apperantly also as a concrete and brick cleaner, in dry or liquid form) I don’t find it with a search of the websites of a couple big chain stores.

It appears pretty easy to get in reagent-quality quantities as amall as 0.5 kg from any of the many online chemical supply companies (eg: Ammonium Sulfamate, Reagent, ACS - A - Alphabetical Listing of Chemicals * 7773-06-0), but seems a bit expensive and reactive to literally throw around – my guess is the stuff should get processed into with some sort of inert material before its suitable for use as a yard/garden product. However, it’s everywhere I’v seen described as “very water soluble”, so you might get good result dissolving a small quantity of it in water and spraying - though it would be nice to have a rough sense of what dry-to-water ratio to use.

Since it seems to have a reputation as a “good/green” herbicide among organic growers, you might have luck corresponding with folk or supply businesses catering to them.

[freeztar]

When I lived in Washington State, I had a project to eliminate all the Japanese Knotweed from a small stretch of stream. I researched the problem to no end. I eventually settled on starving the roots by constant vegetative removal. It resulted (over three months) in a much less prolific plant presence. Though, the summer found any positive results lacking.

The reason I bring this story up is because aggressive weeds will make you work for their death. If you have an established patch of horsetail, it's going to take some work!

While researching how to deal with Japanese Knotweed, back in the day, I found some success in using black plastic. It starves the plant of light, and after months you can peak in and see the death. It's a slow process, but the only effective way to deal with evasive weeds is to starve the roots. Chemicals can help, but they don't get to the root of the problem.

[Michaelangelica]

Isn't it used in bombs?
That might be why large quantities are restricted?

[alternety]

AS might be usable in explosives, but there are a bunch of much easier to get and better alternatives. Simple ammonium nitrate is a good oxidizer, common, and cheap.

I have tried black plastic. It grew through it. I have seen it grow through black top roads.

The only non-chemical alternative I have seen is to starve it to death by cutting off or poisoning all the shoots as soon as they come up. I am in the fifth year of this plan. It is reacting very well. There is much more of it now.

Commonly available herbicides kill the above surface growth, but they do it too quickly and it does not get to the roots/nodes that need to be killed. AS behaves like food. Therein lies the interest.

A serious particle accelerator or gamma source might get it but the active nodes can be 10 - 20' underground. It would take a nuke. The neighbors would not be amused. In point of fact the neighbors are clueless eco freaks. They don't want me to use anything more chemically complicated than sand to any purpose on my land. They probably marched to stop nukes back when and now are wondering why the hell we have burned all that non-renewable carbon base fuel for electricity and ruined the atmosphere. And why we can't fix it quick since they stopped research and design on clean, safe nukes that cause less pollution than coal. They believe that wind, solar, et al wil fix it but do not understand that the grid needs to work 24X7. They used sever knee jerking to turn corn into ethanol (using this for bourbon or white lightening this is not a bad move) but it makes a rotten fuel, we cannot possibly make enough, and they made people around the world starve becasue corn prices and availability went to hell.

Well, that was a bit of a digression.

Every spring I check daily for spore pods. They can go from nothing showing to full blown in a day. They have between 10 gigaterajillion and 1000000000 gigaterajillion spores per pod. I really enjoy ripping off their sex organs. Take this as a cautionary point in further responses.

[freeztar]

Originally Posted by alternety

I have tried black plastic. It grew through it. I have seen it grow through black top roads.

Aye, I know.
Persistance is key!

The only non-chemical alternative I have seen is to starve it to death by cutting off or poisoning all the shoots as soon as they come up. I am in the fifth year of this plan. It is reacting very well. There is much more of it now.

It's a dangerous job. The roots should not be touched.

AS behaves like food. Therein lies the interest.

Please explain (with references preferably).

[alternety]

It is what I was trying to explain a bit at the beginning of this post. It is chemically the same as fertilizer the plant will absorb and move through the assimilation process. It winds up within the structure that tries to make use of it. It effectively attaches to the proper molecular links but it is inactive because of a different twist in the molecule than the normal molecule has. I think this is the levo vs dextro thing (remember, not chemist). They sell sugar that gets taken up but won't metabolize because of the difference in molecule shape; not chemical composition. I want to put the horsetail on a fatal weight loss program.

It cannot be broken down by the normal plant processes and also will not move out of the way. It thus prevents the plant from metabolizing food and it starves.

The idea,in my mind, is that this mechanism does not provide a quick kill that disrupts the flow of materials through the plant structure like the normal contact herbicide. Instead it is carried further into the plant's structure and it works slowly so more of it penetrates further. And the plant will not recognize it as bad and react.

What started me on this is some old articles that reported very good results on horsetail, which is a very widely distributed scourge of man.

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Michaelangelica

Isn't it used in bombs?
That might be why large quantities are restricted?

I think you’re thinking of ammonium nitrate.

In common fertilizer form, mixed with almost any fuel oil, it makes ANFO, it makes a somewhat low energy-density but quite effective explosive, which almost anybody who’s every worked in a rock quarry knows how to make and use. Truckloads of this stuff were the explosives used in the 1993 WTC terrorist bombing, the 1993 Bishopsgate IRA bombing, and the 1995 Oklahoma City terrorist bombing.

To the best of my knowledge, Ammonium sulfamate can’t be readily used in an explosive.