Can anyone tell me how worried I need to be about discovering coffee weed in one of my pastures? It is a three acre pasture and the coffee weed is pretty evenly scattered through about 1/4 of it. It is too much and too spread out to spray/pull. I currently have my horses in my other three acre pasture, but I will eventually need to rotate them into the one with the weed. My questions are: How toxic is it? Do horses tend to eat it if they have other options? How much do the horses have to eat for it to cause problems? And finally, how can I get rid of it in my pasture? Thanks in advance for any advice that you can offer!
I don’t know the answer but just wanted to ask for sure what coffee weed was. Is it this:
http://www.missouriplants.com/Yellowalt/Cassia_obtusifolia_page.html
(When I googled, I also came up with Curly Dock, which is not a problem…but I think you probably mean the one above?)
Is she talking about chicory??
http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/plants/index.html
this is a good resource for toxic plants
Senna occidentalis is not listed. As they say on the site, not being listed does not man that it is totally ssafe
you should contact your local agriculture extension ( check on line) usually found at your state university or via your state ag department
they can advise you about local weeds and how best to control in your pasture
Zoiron, do you mean “common chicory”–tall, scraggly plant with blue flowers, Chicorium intybus?
S1969, that is the one! I was told that it can cause bleeding in the intestinal tract and colic. I can’t find much more information on it in terms of horse toxicity, though.
Keep it mowed down. NEVER let it go to seed and it will eventually disappear.
From what I gather, the beans are toxic if eaten. Keep it mowed so it can’t go to seed, or pull up the individual plants (they have a shallow root system). I think it may be one of those things that horses will eat only if there’s nothing else available, but why take chances? There’s a lot of this in Florida and mowing and then pulling up the stray plants seems to take care of the problem.
Thanks, everyone! I will make sure to keep it mowed and will attempt to pull and spray as much as I can.
