Poison Ivy Removal Without Harmful Chemicals?

[Bob]

I heard it from a salesman in a feed & seed store that sells Roundup. I don't claim it to be true, but I see nothing in the Monsanto article that contradicts it. They discuss the product as a herbicide only.

There is a big difference between use and storage. Latex paint is a weatherproof coating but will rust through a metal paint can over time. Stainless steel will rust through if water is stored in it. Again, I don't claim it to be true based on one person's say-so, but nothing in your post proves it to be false either. Bob

[dpb]

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Well, Roundup doesn't form a protective coating as it is water soluble and reacts w/ steel--not a desirable condition for a protectant. As for SS, some formulations may rust, but many others won't, but whether any SS rusts in the presence of water or not is of no real consequence to the claim that Roundup was ever anything but an herbicide and mot developed for the specific purpose.

[dpb]

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Well, Roundup doesn't form a protective coating as it is water soluble and reacts w/ steel--not a desirable condition for a protectant. As for SS, some formulations may rust, but many others won't, but whether any SS rusts in the presence of water or not is of no real consequence to the claim that Roundup was ever anything but an herbicide and not developed for the specific purpose.

[Terry]

I agree with the others that Roundup is about as safe a chemical as you're going to find.

The product vine-x is supposed to work better on poison ivy.

It uses a common herbicide, Triclopyr ester, which is worse than round-up in the sense of harmful chemicals -- it lasts longer in the soil and can migrate in run-off. However, vine-x is a spot application, directly on the poison ivy. It's not a spray, it's designed to be "painted" on the ivy. The herbicide is mixed in oil, not water, to more easily penetrate the bark of the plant.

Disclaimer -- I haven't used this stuff myself. I know a person who has, and thinks it is great, and the principle of the product (spot application, oil solvent), makes sense to me.

Terry

[Chris Lewis]

According to Bob :

Most types of stainless won't. A few will.

It also depends on what is in the water. The sorts of stainless we usually come into contact won't do well with mild to moderately corrosive liquids. But there are types of stainless that do tolerate it quite well.

[Chris Lewis]

I thought it was used as a soil sterilizer in addition to the N source.

Formaldehyde is (was?) also used as a soil sterilizer.

Paraquat is another nasty, and is still in use.

And virtually zero wait time before replanting. I seem to recall that the replant time for most other non-specifics is on the order of weeks or longer.

[yellowbirddog]

I think you should use Roundup. But if you can find a weed steamer (good luck), that'd probably work, too:

I'm sure boiling water would have the same effect, but what a pain!

[dpb]

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Most definitely!!! l learned this in spades when was working to develop wireless accelerometer w/ intended application primarily for paper manufacturing where chlorine bleach is still used in some processes--did some tests w/ just ordinary household bleach diluted in water and overnight many test samples of the initial choices of various potential SS's turned to junk. Turned out to be a very expensive problem to solve as the alloys that were suitable were both much more expensive raw material and much more difficult to machine...

[Chris Lewis]

According to dpb :

If you think that's bad... Imagine if you will, trying to do mine dewatering at 5000gpm, with a head lift of 5000'.

That's one of the challenges my father had to face - being a civil engineer for a company that specializes in specing/engineering/selling/ servicing such stuff.

Mine water is _highly_ corrosive, and may be acidic or caustic. And can change from one to the other over time. And has abrasive grits in it just to make things more difficult.

[The mine in question's pump impeller failed. From the manufacturer, the impeller would have cost a hideous amount. Instead, my dad's company elected to machine a new SS impeller. 12 stage impeller, about 12' long. Driven by a multi thousand horsepower electric motor. As I understand it, the impeller weighed a ton or so, and ended up costing about $25K to produce, and that with inhouse machinists. Ouch!] [Why the mine did it with a single pump/lift of 5000' I don't know. Staging would have been a lot easier I'd have thought.]

[dpb]

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Interestingly enough, in another life I did work at mines and prep plants (we had a line of online ash and elemental analyzers) so I know quite a bit about keeping stuff alive in that environment, too.... :) As you say, relatively speaking, the paper plants were tough, but in different ways. I just used the example to agree w/ you that various SS are good for different applications like any other material. There are a whole lot more kinds and characteristics thereof than we generally think of when we just say something is "stainless".

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That I don't quite understand either, but for a pump how about 131.6E6 lb/hr @ 2250 psia, 555 F? :) Works out to about 4 Mgal/min in round numbers. What impressed me w/ them (other than the size when standing near one, of course) was that the input work from the pumps was all the energy input to raise primary from ambient to the 550F reactor inlet operating temperature...

[Tom The Great]

You want to "kill" without being "harmful"?

tom

[Jimmie D]

Use the Roundup, It breaksdown to harmless byproducts in just a few days. This was reccomended to me when I inquired at Stowes Botanical Garden about what would be safe to use to get rid of Japanese Honeysuckle.