Eradicating Foxtail Barley from small pasture

[Ziva.Sparks]

I have been battling about an acre of foxtail barley in a 2 acre pasture for the past 5 years and I finally decided to hire out to try to eradicate it. Here is my plan, and if anyone has had to deal with this awful grass, please let me know what you did.

Here’s my game plan:

3 rounds of glyphosate (just the foxtail barley), 3 rounds of fertilizer (whole pasture), irrigate, fall seed and irrigate to germinate anything before winter, then heavy seed in the winter/spring and see what comes in. Spot spray foxtail with glyphosate until it’s gone.

So the 3 rounds of glyphosate and fertilize in-between will take out the existing plants, then anything that germinates with the fertilizer and irrigation will also get wiped out from the next 2 rounds of glyphosate. Then for the last round of fertilizer, prep the ground for good seed and irrigate as much as possible before winter.

Roughly 3 weeks in-between sprays, which will take me to late August for prepping and seeding. I’m in the north, and we have irrigation until the end of October or so. I am seeding with a western wheatgrass, crested wheat grass, alfalfa mix, and I will add some brome in the spring.

Anyone ever deal with anything like this for small pasture management?

[NaturalSelection]

My best method for controlling/minimizing foxtail in pasture and hayfield is to smother it into submission. Avoid over grazing and be gentle with the field during drought conditions. Periodically mow the field, but not below 4”, leave grass clippings to drown out and cover bare patches. Fertilize and overseed as necessary to promote the grass you want. Good grass should outcompete the foxtail over time.

I don’t think it’s possible to eradicate foxtail, I believe the seeds can lay dormant for sometime and the foxtail will reappear when the conditions are favorable (drought, bare patches). I would be worried about the glyphosate killing the grass that you want to keep.

Edited to add that where I live, foxtail is an annual and dies off in the winter whereas the grass I want is cool season perennial. If my cool season grass is thick, there’s no room for the foxtail to germinate.

[Ziva.Sparks]

Thanks for your advice! I did try that, where I grazed it, mowed it and overseeded with other stuff, but the seedbank is just too established. The glyphosate spray is targeted just to the foxtail, I’m saving the other acre of good grass and leaving it alone, and hopefully with watering it and spraying the foxtail, I’ll get the seeds in the ground to all germinate and I’ll deplete the seedbank by the fall, then reseed with good stuff. Luckily I can irrigate, so I should have the advantage, just need to kill off the existing plants and kill the germinating ones.

[goodhors]

Sorry, so far as I know, glyphosate kills almost everything it is sprayed on. Including all grasses. Some with good roots may not be killed dead, but it will sure reduce leaves and grazing. Some plants have a natural immunity, like Horse Tails. I have the kind that are just stalks, return yearly, immune to my glyphosate sprayed on them. I have to cut them down, but they still return every year.

You probably will want to consult an expert from your local State Extension Office or a fertilizer/herbicide plant or company for effective products to use on the foxtail. A seedbank is just that, seeds may sprout from what is now in the soil, this year, next year and MANY years to come when the soil is disturbed or conditions are right to grow it. Here in the Midwest, you will see yellow fields every spring after they were harvested last fall or spring plowed, as the wild mustard seeds sprout. Fields have been in cultivation for a lot of years, sprayed, planted with crops. Still will have old seeds that may be 20+ years old, waiting in the dirt to grow and set seeds, so they need to be killed off before this years planting…

Natural Selection gave good advice about maintaining pastures and good grazing. I mow higher at 6 inches, when grasses-plants reach 8-10 inches tall or start setting seeds. Taller cutting has more leaf cover remaining for the roots and soil, good coverage when the sun is so hot and the rain is a deluge in preventing erosion. Taller has less shock effect to the plant when removing shorter leaf lengths, so grazing plants get right back to growing immediately…

[SusanO]

From reading hay forums there are herbicides that hay producers use to get rid of foxtail in hay fields. I cannot remember what they are but I would bet your extension agents would be familiar with them. Foxtail is a low-quality grass but is only bad when the seed heads are present so keeping the pasture mowed frequently will mitigate a lot of the problems. And in some areas foxtail is an annual and keeping it from going to seed and filling in bare spaces can keep it from getting established.

You can burn down all the grasses with Round-up but that will not control the seed bank. I think your best bet might be to use a herbicide specifically for foxtail and trying to keep the grass cover thick enough so you do not have bare places for it to germinate.

[NaturallyHappy]

Prowl is foxtail specific. We use it.

[SusanO]

That is one of the herbicides the hay forum suggests.

[Ziva.Sparks]

Awesome, thank you guys. I did talk to my extension and they suggested that by irrigating and fertilizing in between rounds of round-up, a lot of the seed bank would germinate and each round of glyphosate would kill off the new growth, hopefully depleting the seedbank down to a spot spray manageable level. And by fertilizing, it would help prep the ground for the good seed in the fall and the spring.

We’ll see what happens. And I will look up Prowl. If there is a grass specific spray, then I can manage it next year without having to kill off my good grass.

[NaturallyHappy]

We use it on our hay fields. It’s preemergent.