I finally got Clearcast sprayed over fifty-two acres of the property. Clearcast is a SePRO product that as I understand it was invented to kill undesired weeds in rice ponds. It is an over the counter (don't need an applicators license to purchase) herbicide approved for applications in wetlands. Farmers and others started noticing that when they would have it flown onto their rice production areas that the Tallow Trees/ Chicken Trees (
Triadica sebifera) around the perimeter would suffer heavy loss, while the native trees for the most part were unharmed. Tests were done and sure enough only a few native species showed leaf burn and mostly in saplings but a high mortality in the invasive Chinese Tallow. I purchased 26 gallons of the chemical through an enrollment with US Fish and Wildlife , Partners for Wildlife Program (Andy Dolan). We flew the stuff on yesterday September 15, 2015 and will post more later showing the results. The chemical is very pricy but for the amount of Tallow I had per acre and the amount of time I was spending backpack spraying individual trees I am hoping this will put a huge dent in the stems per acre and cut back on my labor so I can spend more time enjoying the place as well as working towards a better percentage of natives vs. invasives on the place. We'll see.
