Can spraying Round up on a sugar maple kill it? I have a poison ivy vine climbing one of my sugar maples. I'd like to get rid of it (the PI) but am afraid to spray because I don't want to hurt the tree. Would I be better off just cutting the vine. One of my neighbors cleared some of the barrier between our properties and took the liberty of spraying all the poison ivy that was growing there. About a month later a large sugar maple that was growing there lost all of it's leaves and died. At the time we were just mystified by this, but now I'm wondering if she accidentally sprayed the tree as well.
its unlikely, but at the outside it is possible. is there any new bud development on the maple? green tissue under the bark or is it brown and without moisture?
Whitcomb, ESTABLISHMENT AND MAINTENANCE OF LANDSCAPE PLANTS (1991 edition) describes (under 'Root Absorbed Roundup') two instances where trees died after weeds with heavy roots growing among them were sprayed. No herbicide was sprayed directly on the trees.
Also, if your neighbor sprayed while the temps were over 90 degrees, the active ingred. in roundup becomes volitile. This means the vapors can become as damaging as the actual liquid on plants. I know of a case where a full grown tree looked like it had died, but actually recovered. It took at least a full growing season. polly
This happened about 3 years ago. The top half of that tree is dead wood at this point. The bark has all fallen off. At the bottom there are some small branches with leaves on them. I have seen sugar maples continue to live even with the crown dead. There are 2-3 smaller trees right next to it that also died at the same time. That's what made me think it was the neighbors landscaping efforts that may have hurt them. Maybe I'll get some gloves and try pulling out this other PI. It's not that much, and I don't want to lose this maple. It turns a gorgeous combination of orange and red in the fall.
Dieback of maples can be caused by various agents. I will probably quit planting them on one site I am developing as there is a long history of failure, suspect at least part of the time it is pseuomonas.
Jeez, who knew the stuff can be so accidentally or otherwise lethal. I have a small bottle that I use, after everything else fails. On maple sprouts in between concrete. Mostly I find boiling water works and or steam. I suppose a vine, like shelli is referencing is now long gone? I read about round-up, after about a month the toxicity of round-up has broken down? Is that an urban myth, I wonder? Monsanto is very aggressive with their products, it would not surprise me? My understanding was it is basically "agent orange", the same stuff used to defoliate jungles, so ... Like I say; I'm slow to use that product.
Roundup (glyphosphate) disrupts a specific enzyme necessary for plants to grow. Since they can no longer produce certain protiens the entire plant dies. Humans and animals do not have this enzyme and so are unaffected by glyphosphate. Once applied, it breaks down into harmless carbon dioxide and nitrogen in a few weeks. It also will not travel thru the soil. I use it constantly to keep my garden beds free of weeds. Its one of the safest products out there, from what I've been able to gather.
Isn't it the inactive ingredients that seem to be causing a stir theses days? I tend to view minor use of the product to be more or less inconsequential in relation to the hundreds of chemicals people sniff in their lungs each day from anything from new car interiors to the neighbor's new house painting. Apparently it's not supposed to do much to bark, but I suspect it can still work it's way into the lenticils, so I'm not for spraying vines on trees.
i use round up all the time around my maples making sure not to have overspray and i have never had any issue, granted i am using the regular stuff and not the extended control formula. i have heard it breaks down in clay
Has anyone had any experience with Basta(R) (from Bayer CropScience)? http://www.plantmedia.com/productin...ta-Phosphinothricin-Glufosinate-Ammonium.html Thanks in advance! Regards, Andres
Roundup damages everything in its path. I'd stay away from it. That said, you'd need a lot of Roundup to kill a Maple.' Erik Pro Cut Tree Service Lynnwood
Some people view a "nice" garden just like a picture from a magazine for a Madoff investor, with lawns that look like wall-to-wall green carpetting (no life inside, no flowers, no insects, no bees, no moles, no life) and "statues" of trees on the picture. Some think that life should look like a still-life, like you know, a painting of does drinking from a pond in an autumn setting. Some use RoundUp (R) and other chemicals that pollute and kill. Different places, different cultures I suppose. Bees don't bite me, neither do wasps or bumblebees, beetles and bats, and there are still butterflies in my garden, and dandelion, plantain, wild orchids, and blackbirds, chickadees, etc. on a 500 sq metre garden in an urban area. So, I can't tell you if RoundUp(R) can kill a maple, but I'm certain doing without it means wildlife is thriving. What's next? Is fracking harmful to my maple?...
I respect your candid replies, but i was hoping to know if this herbicide that inhibits a key metabolic enzime of plants is monocot specific or can also affect trees, and hence maples. I believe that herbicides are not the problem, but rather that the problem is the lack of responsibility in their use. Roundup is not the devil, it is a tool and it is people that misuse it. And we are the one supposed to be sapient beings ;)
This herbicide that inhibits a key metabolic enzyme of plants can also affect all caducous trees, and therefore maples. Yes. But you must pulverize it on leaves. This product is able to destroy very large invaders trees as Ailanthus altissima. To be efficient you must inoculate it in holes made under bark.
Yes glyphosate can kill a maple. I would question whether it might damage maples, like section macrantha, which have tender stems. I don't have direct experience but I have seen it kill raspberry canes when applied in winter. But for a sugar maple, getting it on the stem, while to be avoided, will not damage it. @Alain: I use glyphosate selectively, and frankly I doubt very much that there is less wildlife in my garden than in yours. In fact glyphosate does one thing exceptionally well: kill grass. As I often get grass in the mulch around maples, and in the grillage I use to keep the wildlife off, there is no better solution in my largish garden. YMMV, but on a more restrained space it may be possible to use manual solutions that are impractical elsewhere.
The point I take from all this, is that we don't really know how the products we use affect the ecosystems and life around us. And that is what makes many uneasy about using them. It is in fact a chemical that kills plants put into the hands of absolutely anyone, than questioned on a University based botanical forum. Opinions will of course flourish.
I know from my work on the tree nursery, we are extremely careful with glysophate around a select few trees. Japanese maples, Tilia and Liriodendrons. They get burned and in a year or three the bark will crack damaging the tree slowly.
