Buying a piece of land with Japanese Knotweed

Davesnave

martindow wrote: »

Assuming it is not toxic to them, pigs would be a good organic way or removing it, but would they dig deeply enough to get rid of all the rhizomes?

No, they go deeper than even pigs will go.

Gigervamp

We've got some in one of our fields and although the chickens love rooting around underneath it, I've not seen them eat it. I think goats might be better for that.

daveyjp

Buying the land and deciding not to remove it is foolhardy for two reasons:

1. If you know you have it you are duty bound to prevent it spreading.
2. If you do nothing it won't just disappear.

If animals get near it and damage the plant it enters a survival mode and spreads more quickly underground. This time next year you will have twice as much of the stuff to get rid of.

Anything which grubs in soil, especially pigs will eat the rhizomes which start just below the soil. They will walk around and spread the rhizome resulting in a serious problem as new plants will pop up all over.

After purchase you need to fence the area off, make others aware it is knotweed, in July and August spray with glyphosate and leave it. In Feb next year cut the dead stalks and burn them. By April new shoots will be appearing and you can repeat the treatment.

After two years it should be under control, but this is assuming there aren't huge patches on land adjacent as it will keep spreading.

Gigervamp

After two years it should be under control, but this is assuming there aren't huge patches on land adjacent as it will keep spreading.

That's the problem we have here. It's coming from the motorway embankment next to the field.

It's all over the place in this county and the council don't seem to be doing anything about it. I see it more and more around here.

Ivana_Tinkle

I wouldn't let animals graze on it. It definitely seems to be the case that disturbing the ground encourages it to spread. I'd think pigs would be a disaster, especially if they break up bits of root which then get spread around, but poultry pecking at the roots could be almost as bad. I know goats will eat it but, again, I'd worry about it getting trampled and, essentially, propagated.

FWIW, we've done two rounds of stem-treating our knotweed (spraying the bits that were too wispy) and it's almost completely gone now. We're down from hundreds, if not thousands, of stems to perhaps 10. It's really not that difficult, and I believe, even if you want to be organic, you can get special permission from the Soil Association to treat it with glyphosate because nothing else works.