Glyphosate (Roundup) is a herbicide and hugely useful in controlling unwanted species in the forest.

It doesn’t hurt trees, but kills anything else with leaves. Everyone I encountered who gave me advice, assumed I knew how to use Roundup. They were wrong about that.

My Professional Forester had recommended I use Roundup to attack the invasive species. Early in my forestry experience, I purchased a pre-mixed, 2-gallon jug of roundup with an attached sprayer. Having some extra time after building my tool box, I pumped up the roundup and began spraying some thorny bushes that I wanted to kill. I also sprayed some on some weeds around my tool box, and some other areas. Soon, the 2 gallons was gone, and I congratulated myself on how quickly I was learning about managing the forest.

Two weeks later I returned to the forest. I was anxious to assess the impact of my skillfully applied Roundup.

It didn’t look like anything had happened.

The big thorny bushes were still there, as were the small stickery bushes. The poison ivy was unchanged. If anything, the plants were bigger and more robust than before, this being in the spring and right in the middle of exuberant growth.

I decided to read the directions on the Roundup jug, and also spent several hours on the internet, trying to figure out where I went wrong.

The main problem, I later discovered, is that I didn’t have a grasp of how much Roundup to use on each plant. I had assumed (incorrectly), that Roundup was so poisonous to plants that just hitting a few leaves would kill off all the roots. Not so.

To effectively kill off the invasive plants I was attacking, I would need to get all of the leaves glistening wet with Roundup, not just a few of the leaves.

I’ve also discovered that the concentrate, mixed with water, is the most cost effective way to apply Roundup, and that somewhat higher concentrations than the directions indicate work better for me.

So the amount of Roundup used and its’ concentration does make a difference. In my small clearing that I made as a staging area for my forestry activities, I’ve now used nearly 50 gallons of Roundup (mixture, not concentrate), and I can definitely tell the difference.

And as far as I can tell, none of the trees in the areas where I’ve used the Roundup have been stunted at all, and the sprayed areas are brown and dead.

It’s a start.