To Herbicide, or Not To Herbicide....

That Is the Question....

(What follows is an abridged version of an article published on the Ecological Landscape Alliance (ELA) website. If you’d like to read the original, find it here.)

In 2024 I was hired to remove buckthorn, honeysuckle, and multiflora rose from a forested eleven acre NRCS contract site in central Vermont. As it was an herbicide-free contract, this meant manual removal of many large to very large buckthorn and honeysuckle and clearing some areas of extremely dense infestation. Much of the parcel was ag land until the 1970's, some of which succeeded to hardwoods but over decades the invasives established with prejudice and spread throughout, including under older growth pine canopy. A familiar story in Vermont – abandoned ag land turned to invasive monoculture, here with some of the largest buckthorn and honeysuckle I’ve seen including the all-time buckthorn champion, a forty foot hollow cored monster measuring 22-24" basal diameter. One two-acre section in particular (that I’ll always remember fondly....) was a dense jungle of thousands of three to ten foot buckthorn whips and saplings (with tree deadfall throughout, of course), seeded over the years by two dozen forty to fifty year old matriarchs. Not surprisingly, prior to my taking the job the only options the owners were offered were to bring in the big machines or "spray, baby, spray," which in this case was not going to happen.   

Herbicide works – that’s why everyone uses it. It's cheap, effective, and easy to use, and there are many situations where herbicide and/or machines are the only realistic options. For understandable reasons these have become the reflexive answers for any invasive plant infestation, which is both unfortunate and incredibly limiting as there are effective low and no herbicide solutions that work, at scale and in real time, that can meet the standards of an NRCS EQIP contract. The problem is that ideas for what's possible become limited by the methods you've invested time, resources, and energy in; it also doesn't help that every state and federal agency, and almost all practitioners in the field, view herbicide as not just one possible solution, but the only solution. And let’s be honest - manual removal is hard work, harder than most folks are willing to deal with, where heavy and hard to use tools like weed wrenches don't make things easier. Not surprising, I suppose, that this kind of work is seen as impractical or even impossible at scale, which as I can (and will) attest is just plain wrong. Every landscape has unique conditions, and every parcel has stakeholders with unique objectives, values, and resources. One size does not and cannot fit all, whether it's herbicide, machines, or mechanical removal, and the best tools and strategies are always the ones that fit both the owner’s objectives and the demands of any given landscape.  

Because these owners had ruled out herbicide, brush cutting those thousands of buckthorn whips and saplings and then spot spraying the resprouts was not an option. This left two possibilities for mechanical removal - pulling by the roots, or brush cutting and then cutting back the resprouts repeatedly until they died. I estimated that the one and done of pulling would actually be less resource intensive than brushcutting the resprouts two, three, or possibly four times over the next two growing seasons; a bonus was breaking up the compacted clay soil to allow increased rain infiltration for native regeneration. Plus, NRCS does not reimburse followup management outside the contract period, which means out of pocket expense and the time and labor of having to revisit repeatedly.

So pulling was the best solution, and here's where the right tool makes the work possible: a 2½ lbs. pickaxe with a nearly unbreakable hickory handle. Yep, in this world of ‘smart’ everything, what made the job possible was a relatively lightweight, easy to use and nearly indestructible tool of the 18th century. With this, muscle power, and practice, anyone of reasonable strength can pop stems up to 2” (or sometimes more) out of the ground pretty damn quick - as always, speed and efficiency are the name of this game. I started by first pulling the tallest, most vigorous stems, then the next biggest, then next, targeting my effort for the greatest returns. Hard work? You bet. But now there are two acres of what used to be nearly impassable buckthorn jungle that are almost 100% permanently cleared, where the maples, basswood, ash, shagbark, and dogwood will seed and regenerate, and where the fern, jumpseed, sedge, and cohosh will rapidly expand and cover. This is not hypothetical; I’ve seen over and over how quickly native species, especially herbaceous species, fill in areas cleared of dense invasive growth. The seeds, rhizomes, and growth energy are there, waiting for the opportunity. They just need the space to grow.

The satisfaction of seeing a landscape transform before your eyes in real time, from impassably dense non-native growth to regenerating Northeastern hardwood forest, is hard to convey. The work took approximately 150 contractor hours to complete, including chainsaw removal and breakdown of thirty-ish large to very large buckthorn and honeysuckle stems, cutting and removing deadfall, and building compact brush piles for the invasive biomass. I also brushcut to the ground all seedlings and small whips under 36”, as in my experience these root systems die or are too small to regenerate vigorously. This was only two acres of the eleven acre work section; there was much more work involved in meeting the contract requirements but as a demonstration of an effective approach that works at scale and in real time, it shows that manually transforming landscapes from invasive choked to >95% permanently cleared is possible with hard work, effective strategies, and the right tools and methods.

A few caveats: If the entire eleven acre contract area had been as heavily infested as the worst third, the expense and time frame of manual removal would’ve been beyond the means or  budget of many landowners. Owners must also consider the reimbursement rates for different modes of removal if using the NRCS EQIP program. Also, if the landowner’s values had allowed low dose herbicide use like cut stump and spot spraying, the need for and cost of multiple followup cuttings becomes unnecessary; here a multi-year management plan was required. In the end, however, the final product on the full eleven acre contracted work section, using the above and other no-herbicide strategies, was >90% permanent removal/mortality of all invasive stems and effectively 100% removal of aboveground invasive biomass, at an average cost of approximately $1,300/acre. Compared to $1,000/acre for straight herbicide, or $4,000/acre for machine removal this is very cost competitive, and given the negative effects of herbicide and heavy machinery on the landscape a carefully planned, flexible, and well-executed strategy of low-dose or herbicide free manual invasive removal appears to be not just possible, but in some cases a preferable path for land restoration.  

The bias against manual invasive work has had another effect, an important one: a deficit of improvements in skillset, efficiencies, and knowledge base resulting from practice, practice, practice. Any professional makes hundreds of decisions on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, each based on experience and judgment and leading to improved performance. You weigh options in real time, form and test hypotheses, make mistakes and see successes; you test and adopt and adapt, keeping always your objectives in mind. Here it’s no different. As a result what seemed to many to be impossible or highly unlikely becomes not just possible, but reliably so. Finally, for me the most important takeaway is that anyone in good health can do this kind of work, and can make a difference. As a good friend of mine used to say, love is work; and as I like to say, love your land. This is what transformative land stewardship looks like: thoughtfulness, practice, persistence, and the willingness to do the work of loving your land.