New Tool Mows Down Blackberries With Ease
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- Опубліковано 30 вер 2024
- USA Made Smart Wool Socks
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I am trying out a new tool for mowing down blackberries. We have invasive Himalayan blackberries and evergreen blackberries. I am using a Stihl FS 131 trimmer with HL 145 hedge trimmer attachment. Cutting down the blackberries is only the first step. Spraying the shoots that sprout back will be needed to get rid of them permanently.
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There's a 52cc Chinese trimmer that has that hedge trimmer and every else on Ebay for less than 200. I got one and its actually pretty nice though I didn't get the hedge trimmer.
Love smart wool socks, have many.
Why do you continue to use all my material in your video? You aren’t leaving me anything to comment on.
-Mr. Obvious
I found that the Oregon 295504-0 Universal Mulching Brushcutter works really well on blackberries. DON"T use it on poison oak and Ivy though as it tents to throw the bits it makes around a lot.
That's what I use on brambles here in Denmark. No poison ivy here, but I do wear a scarf because of the bits that get between the face shield and shirt collar.
I am an old guy and swear I can remember when the blackberry patch was a rare thing. 60 years later and they are everywhere. I told my wife I was starting to have nightmares about them creeping through the windows at night. They grow fast. We decided it was time to move, so now I'm on the far east side of Washington state where it is too dry for these evil weeds. So far.
@denjhill - You're not the first person to take a trip due to weed.
Here in the PNW on the volunteer trail crew, we'll use the circular saw blades on FS110 and FS240 Stihl bike handle brush saws. They do quite well cutting back the huckleberry bushes that encroach on the hiking trails (and the slide alder that chokes the access roads). But for the softer stuff like green blackberry, I could see where the hedge attachment will make quicker work of it, with the much wider cutting swath.
Come on Michael, your slipping a bit- the obvious wood setting on the moisture meter for checking the socks would be “Cottonwood “😁
Might be good for privet too, if the diameter of the stems isn't too crazy. Your trees are fairly widely spaced, though...don't think I'd be swinging a huge greatsword like that in my pine woods too easily.
As for the circular blades, that's all they use on their weed-eaters in Japan. I never saw one with string there. They work quite well, but any circular-motion tool is going to have big problems with vines getting wrapped up in the head. I think that's the real advantage of this reciprocating hedge trimmer for stuff like these blackberries that you mow in this video.
Come to east Tennessee, where the berry brambles grow 10ft. tall and create a complete "no go" zone.
I’ve got some property not far from Kingsport. The berry brambles there kick my butt every time.
@@wiskyjack_7143 Well hello neighbor, from Sneedville
I let a big deer go one year because she was going into the blackberries,hard no for me!
Just bad in the PNW - even worse. I've seen brambles that have taken over two story houses. As long as they have something to support them, they will climb over it.
I bought some socks to help you afford a battery powered hedge trimmer. lol...
Stock music is way more annoying
The Tom Waits of Lumberjacks!
I find rotary heads ("whipper-snippers") work best for viney and rangey stuff like berry plants. There's less snags and hangups.
brush mower on a tractor on ground where you can drive them. My GF's neighbor is so lazy she let her house get almost engulfed by blackberries and the horse trailer in the field was covered. Took an excavator to clear the whole piece of land but the new stuff is growing again. Needs to be mowed now. Gotta cut this stuff every year to keep it down.
The 3 lobe head works great on all blackberry canes and scotch broom up to 3/4". Bigger than that, circular saw blade works well. After you do that for 1/2 a mile one finds that a forestry mulcher is the answer. Looks like the hedge trimmer works great on the new soft green stuff.
Yup - I've used a flail mower and a rotary mower (brush hog) to take down the brambles on my property - at least the acreage near the house. The clear cut acreage doesn't have many, at least not where I cut firewood from left over logs.
My goats have eliminated the blackberries on my property where they can get to them. In other areas I supervise their grazing on them so they don’t run over to the raspberries and flowers. Five acres, seven goats.
It works when you absolutely need it too but if you have a nice biodiverse property they will eat everything else first and then eventually eat the blackberries when there is nothing else left
I always set my moisture meter to HARDWOOD for an accurate reading
I would set up a tree stand nearby...lol The tool seems to work good for vegetation management. Instead of watching you, I think I need to get out and do some work on my own property.
Saw blade on the larger canes. Most definitely. Hedge trimmer is the way to go for smaller ones. I have been using this for years. Even works with the FSA-135 battery trimmer.
Backhoe and root rake grapple. Then mow, mow, mow. And they still come back. No music please.
Oregon do a mulching blade that will destroy everything in its path, including blackberry's. Here in Ireland there are known as briars or brambles
The Oregon mulching blade is my choice for brambles too- I like that there's no clean-up required because raking them up is no fun.
I have that same Stihl powerhead with a brush cutter head on it. Same a the weed-eater head but a different guard. Onto this I have attached a 12" carbide miter saw blade. This is scary as can be...but man what a job it does on just about anything. It will yarf thru a 2" branch in about half a second. Goes thru blackberries like hot butter. I only use the pole saw attachment for anything above 2".
What do you call your toes in Camel city socks?
Camel toes😂
Like a good camel toe!
I have a big problem with blackberries in my back yard encroaching from a neighbor. Grows fast, thick, nasty thorns and thick runners😠
Uh yeah - no. I only watched the first couple of minutes of cutting fairly new (and therefore mostly soft green shoots). I had about the same experience (Stihl Kombi with hedge trimmer) with green stalks; mediocre. With older denser stalks/bunches, it is going to be much harder and the trimmer just won't work very well - if at all - because the older stalks are denser & stronger.
So since I had much denser & older clumps/bunches of Himalayan blackberries, I cut them down with a a flail mower or brush hog (at first mostly a flail mower, later a brush hog), then sprayed the returning stalks with a mixture of Crossbow & Glyphosate & diesel on a hot day when the chemicals work best on them. Once cut down the returning stalks are green and much fewer in density vs. the large lumps growing up from central stalks.
After that (usually the next year), I pull up any remaining or new green stalks (much fewer in number) by hand, to get them from root roots.
Scotch broom OTOH, is an ongoing battle, best pulled up by hand early spring/summer when new and the ground is wet. If you get it early then its not bad - if you let it get a hold (like one of my neighbors) then it gets real bad. Spraying it kills it, but the remaining stalks are almost as bad (for fire danger) as the green plant; they remain standing, dead, but still a fire danger. Unfortunately, several plots near or adjoining my plot, have not done anything about the Scotch broom that came up after they were clear cut and now it is all over those plots.
I have similar, but on battery. I use teflon-based maintenance spray on the bar, else they stick together. Sock porn, lol.
Cheesy license-free music would be MUCH worse! ;-)
Once they are all cut down, don’t they just grow back? Can they be eliminated completely in some way?
I’ve got his problem with blackberries around MY area. The berry makes for some great cobbler, but otherwise it’s a pain in the “keister”.
To answer the question, chemical mowing is what I’ve turned to because it’s relatively low intensity and it works, but it’s selective depending upon the humidity and current water supply available to the bush.
*GOATS*
He should look into paying a migratory goat guy/gal come in to clear the understory. Plus you get the recycling of nutrients..... knowhatimsayin'?
Renting goats....it's a real thing!
@@willbass2869 I’ll have to look into that for MY place. 😀
What I’ve found really useful for blackberries and clearing large volumes of brush is using the stihl shredcut or Oregon mulching blade for brush cutters. It mulches the waste down into very little.
If you keep cutting them down over a couple years, they won't have the energy to keep coming back strong. The real key is laying seed or planting things that will shade them out after you cut them down.
My hubby used to use the circular blade and it worked GREAT on weeds that where thicker, and very high field grasses..
Thanks, great idea with the hedge blade! Love your humor!! Take Care out there!🌲Greetings from 🌽🌽Iowa!
Just curious but if it wasn't the dry season wouldn't a controlled burn work better for the blackberries?
That attachment is pretty slick. Is your property moving at some time?
Probably all overgrown again with these already 🤣
Stock music is definitely more annoying.
Poor guy has controlled burning ptsd
Do not worry, those berries will adjust with your departure.
I used Boer goats. They get it done, and the seed in the poop is inert when it passes through the goat. Oh yeah and goat taste great.
I have the battery version of this, its impressive
What happened to the new white Ford truck?
Keep your feet dry and your tool cool! 😆
Have you tried goats?
Music is more annoying.
LOL, Captain Obvious here: Gotta pull the roots if you really want to get rid of that blackberry patch (or the poison oak). If you don't want to hurt the soil ecology, pulling is your only choice. Hedgers are great to get rid of the bulk green material, works for English Ivy too. Triblades also work but are a bit more heavy duty (like for small trees, bamboo, ceanothus) and have the smaller contact patch. I've been pretty impressed with Stihl's battery powered weed whip and hedgers use time per battery. I'm anti cheesy music if you've keeping track.
Nice video. My method is: bulldozer/excavator flail mower/brush cutter/ goats. When they're 20 feet into the trees, a hedge trimmer won't do the job.
Blackcurrants I am waiting to make jam from my 2 bushes - The UK Robins are raiding my Redcurrants, last year I covered them with mesh and the Robbin would not look at us ; so I s*ot it with an air r*fle; only kidding BUT I would hurt a FLY. ;-)
Lat year the rats were climbing into my 2 grape vines to steal the grapes, I live in the UK near Cardiff.
The rats need a lead injection. My neighbour puts food out the seagulls and squirrels so we gat rats. The squirrels get food from his garden and dig up all my plants and lawn to bury the monkey nuts and the crows then come and dig bigger holes ..... sad times. Why do Townies want to create problems with handing out for to vermin ?
I am a country lad that puts food and water out when the conditions are harsh for the little critters.
All the best to all - who make jam
New to this channel. Really enjoy your down to earth style. Wool socks are the bomb. Next time wear one wool sock and one cotton sock and compare with your moisture meter. If there’s no difference just don’t upload it (says Captain Obvious).
I run through 8 blades plus 3+ re-sharpening on each. Stihl FS240. Sharp blade go through 1 in softwood like through air. You can move through bush like through grass. You can cut 4 in three with it to. Can be re-sharpened in a field with a file in 10 minutes and as good as new. If you hit ground with it it still cutting, pretty forgivable on this. Beware, it cut through metal and wire to with surprising ease, so don`t use it around anything you can afford to damage.
I doubt that cutter could handle kudzu, would probably get all boogered up.
Damn, 100* already?
Blackberries. ugh! If you are willing to use herbicides you really can get rid of them...I think it's the only way. Mowing them down like you did, first is always a good idea. Good luck!
This is probably the least usefull stihl tool for the job, a brushblade would be faster, it has less range but you can move way faster, never get stuck,.. and it can handle the dirt, no real need for sharpening after a few low to the ground mows,,.. the small recipro (scyth) and the cirkular recipro attachement would be a bit slower than a simple brushcutter but still faster than the hedge trimmer and they need less sharpening compared to the big hedge trimmer,..
No music please
I have the same exact setup and the power scythe attachment is worthless on tall grasses like orchard grass. It doesn't seem to cut the stems, they just get crimped and lay over the cutterbar. The attachment DOES work awesome for trimming bushes around the yard. I haven't tried it on the raspberries yet but I think it would work well.
This is awesome and I need this attachment for my property. Back side of my pasture I'm trying to get a nice new osage sapling grove going and raspberries are trying to take over. Sadly my FS 70 R can't run this attachment. Kinda thinking I need to invest in a bigger better trimmer setup so I can run all these attachments that will drain my bank account.
Beautiful English...
Well, when dont have much book learnin'
!
I know different types of blackberry that each propagate differently. Not only by seed, but also by laying down the vines or by root suckers. The fight against this requires an appropriate approach. Blackberry with root shoots is best cut out and blackberry with vine layers is best mowed. Limit the use of chemical pesticides and preferably by means of a special application (do not spray, but touch with a special applicator). Instead of a gas engine, I use cordless tools with a battery on the back or on the waist belt. Much quieter, less vibration, lighter and longer use on a charge than on a tank of petrol.
I like using my ventracs for brush and blackberries scotch broom. Plus it will go sideways on steep slopes!
there's a process called "denial of green" where you just keep mowing stuff off, until it gives up. and yes, hedge trimmers work great for viney weeds.
addendum: circular blades have the weakness that you have to get the blade turned at least 60 degrees to the vine, or it won't cut well. haven't used my circular blade on vines since my BIL gave me a hedge cutter.
I bought my hedge trimmer for my hedge. Have since expanded to blackberries, salal (Oregon wintergreen), dune grass, heather and tall grass. I am North of you in the Coast range, so thankfully no poison oak.
I have used the extended sickle bar for many years for general brush control, including blackberry, in a public setting. Sickle bar is much less risky, does not throw material. This format does cost more to maintain than spinning blades or string. I also used a circular variation of reciprocating cutter. Same action in a 10 inch disk. Good for cutting around desirable plants or trees, or for targeting a single species in a plot. Doesn’t splatter poison oak juices on yourself.
Get a herd of goats lol
The blackberries are a curse, hate 'em. I'm in the fog belt, central oregon. Last year one cane grew over 39 feet up and over a bush, touched ground and started rooting.
Here in the PNW Himalayan Blackberries are a real pain turn your back on them and they will take over. I gave up trying to wipe them out years ago to be honest mostly just try to keep them under control. Besides don't want to give away those berries. Yes what you have should work great just don't use the string trimmer on them not very effective
If you actually want to really chop them back you need a few goats they will keep it way down. I have seen houses "consumed by them"*`.
Thank you for another great and informative video.
We have got some flat fields with hedgerows, where the blackberry bushes encroach onto the grass. I use the teeth on the front blade of my JCB3cx on them. It soon clogs up, but then rips them out roots and all. By the time I have gone 100 yards I have a really big bonfire. They come back after a couple of years, by creeping out from the hedgerow again.
triclopyr 4 works great on blackberries. it's systemic - spray on leaves, kills the roots too. a little goes a long way - i dilute 100-1 with water and a surfactant. for backpack delivery i put in a dye, like laser blue dye so i can easily see what has been treated and not.
Eugene OR here. Blackberries are a gigantic problem in this area, the size of the vines and how much land they cover is unbelievable and astonishing. They can cover many acres with vines that build on themselves over the years. Birds and animals spread the seeds. The plant also spreads by sending out shoots that root when they touch the ground. We own property here and many times I have used my CHAINSAW to cut down the patches. Sometimes I burrow inside the root area and cut it at ground level. Ladders and boards can be put on the berry patch and you can carefully 'climb' the ladder which crunches the vines down. The problem is much worse and much more extensive than it was 50 years ago. My feeling is they are sucking up all the water and making the land dry.
I have a battery powered hedger that I use as a "power scythe" for ground trimming. Blackberries are tenacious. If you were able to use fire, it would set it back much better.
This is a remote property I believe but if you are nearby to manage the blackberries year round you can knock them down then spot spray with chemicals then heavily seed with any type of grass seed. Native drought tolerant seed mix seems to be more expensive but will be less work in the long run. Basically choke out the roots over time.
Thanks for this info,uesd my hedge trimer on the blackberries, makes them easier to pick. Medusa head? drill or broadcast vetch into it.Once the vetch sprouts it will take over and change the soil and increases the fertility.On my property in eastern Oregon ,vetch took over and then tall wheat grass has succeeded the vetch ..
Glad you showed this, I have been using a brush blade, this works much better. I went and bought a Husky battery saw after your video on how it works. Thanks alot
Nice socks
I love your videos. Even though I don't do that type of work. I think you should've been testing the bottom of your feet not the top. When my feet are hot, and I stand on the concrete, you could see my footprint. Thanks.
Hilarious!
I have an echo hedge trimmer similat to that. Good idea - I'll have a go at brambles & nettles this side of the pond. Thank you.
I was thinking this guys name must be Dave and scrolled down to see it's Wilson. Nice lawn mowing hat Wilson.
Have to agree about wool rather than cotton socks. Counter intuitive maybe, but very true.
Seems to me that with the hedge trimmer you can cover more area than you would with a circular cutter. I have circular cutter and always thought there had to be something better
One impressive sickle mower did sort work of the blackberries.
Even Chuck Norris is scared of a Stihl.
Just so you know the hedge trimmer is like a mini sickle bar mower just thought I'd mention it that seems cool to me
It works well. I have had that attachment for over ten years to trim my moms hedges. I have used it quite a bit on vines and under growth
The circular blade would cut thicker stuff just not as much surface area at a time
Best sock promo Ive ever seen haha. Liked and subbed 😅
That moisture meter works pretty good on your socks after you get past the smell 😂
I have one of those. It's a beast and very handy. Love it!
Do those blackberries survive the control burn or a forest fire? I'm not sure if their seeds would drop below the fire line germinate and come back.
Yeah they survive since most of the root system is underground.
20 years ago I used duct tape to attach an electric hedge trimmer to a shovel blade. It looked funny but made easy work out of all the ground clearing I had to do!
RedGreen lol.
NOW THATS A COOL LOOKING PIECE OF ADD-ON ATTACHMENT
i did this and do this with a few broom handles and a hedge trimmer at the bottom! works just like this tool.. i had no idea they even had these!! omg!
for the cat tail aroud my pond, and high brush along my road.. man i love this! i am gonna get this, thnk u for postig the attchments!
Cross-bow spray will kill blackberries off as well as Scotchbroom
When you have problem with blackberries you make wine. Well, in south Louisiana that’s what we do. 🍷
You’re getting some excellent practical suggestions: goats, a winery. I say let the canes get really thick, harvest ‘em and mill them on your Wood-Mizer.
Mr Roundup is your friend
I have a patch of blackberrys here on my place.
If i cut them down like you did, could i cover them up with wood chips to kill it and make it all rot?
Black bears love blackberries. Goats love blackberries. Cougars love goats. Buy some goats. Win, win, win.
Bears love goat, cougars love goat, good luck goats.😊
My goats ate the blackberries, the cougar ate my goats. Now the goats are gone and the blackberries are back.
When I lived in Tibet we had massive problems with Oregon blackberries
I wonder if it would be better to spray before mowing. That would give you more foliage area to absorb the herbicide and kill those vast root systems. In addition when you have a re-sprouting perennial, the sap flow can be unidirectional (roots sending sugars upwards to new growth) so the translocation of herbicide might not carry it to roots at all. I guess though spot treatment with a concentrated herbicide is bettter when you want to leave other plants alive.