EXT wrote: ...
2,4,5-T was decertified years ago by EPA even for licensed agricultural use in the US. 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T mix was known as "Agent Orange" and the indiscriminate use in 'Nam and aerial spraying for attempting to thwart marijuana plots in proximity to habitation was prime motivation for the ban.--
BTW, I don't know about neoprene, but poison oak urushiol apparently goes right through latex gloves! :(
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P.S. I'd at least want to bulldoze a path so I could use herbicides.
From the stuff I've read, pulling poison ivy from dry soil will not be very effective. It'll just regrow vigorously from root parts left behind. You're going to have to find a way to apply herbicides.
oils and alkalis
I wish! I really do. If you can find a reliable reference that says that, I'd love to read it thoroughly as (see below), it has been proven to be infectius for more than a century after the plants died (dendritic samples in drawers).
The urushiol is in every part of the plant (even tiny hairs on the stem):
Others show examnples where urushiol infectivity lasts a century:
Yet others assert urushiol is infectious only for a few years:
It's way too steep to get a bulldozer or bobcat from what I've been told. It's hard enough to climb in there on foot, as it is.
Mine too! If it would work.
Unfortunately, killing the leaves does nothing to clear the thicket of the infectious stems and roots.
See these pictures to get an idea of the chaparral we're talking about:
Also see my previous references which claim that a tiny drop the size of a pin point is infectious months, years, proven cases of a century in samples stored in archives, and some people say, essentially forever.
This is deep in a valley where you can't even walk through the stuff w/o hacking away with a machete and/or power cutters. I don't think a bobcat or bulldozer can get in there either because I have to climb down a rope cut through the poison oak just to get to the bottom where most of the work lies.
PREVIOUS REFERENCES: Only a few molecules are needed to cause a rash:
Others show examnples where urushiol infectivity lasts a century:
Yet others assert urushiol is infectious only for a few years:
hnuextreme.com/faq.htm
inyurl.com/ybkublp
sYour plants aren't going to be stored inside, dried. They'll be subject to weather (sun, water, fungus, bugs, bacteria).
Quote: :It usually takes a year or so before the toxic properties weather away." Source:
I'd love that too! Unfortunately, the access to the areas I'm clearing is very steep! I have to climb down a rope that I posted in the ground after cutting through the tangle of poison oak.
What steepness of a soft hillside can a bulldozer go down?
I'm not sure how to measure the steepness of the access points, but, I'd say a six-foot tall human is below the lip in about 9 or ten feet. That is, in only a few steps (about four or so), you're already below where you started. It's pretty steep.
I'll see if I can snap a picture of the steepness to give you an idea. If a bobcat can get down a cliff, I'd LOVE to rent one and do it myself!
Might also want to cover unprotected skin with Bentoquatam topical (generic for Bentone 34; Ivy Block; IvyBlock etc..)
Urushiol can atomize in microscopic proportions enough to cause Contact Dermatitis if you're going to be squeezing and pulling on living plants.
Also don't burn any plant containing Urushiol it can persist inside dried plants making the smoke toxic.
Ask your pharmacist about IvyBlock.
Hi Mike, That's a very interesting article, which says urushiol "is very stable, and dead and dried material is as hazardous to sensitive people as an actively-growing plant. It is equally active in the dead of winter. Many people have caught poison ivy from dead poison ivy plants. It usually takes a year or so before the toxic properties weather away".
Even though the urushiol in poison oak is different than that in poison ivy
Interesting ...
I'm digging in google to try to find what that weathering mechanism might be as it's mighty interesting because that might actually be a way to combat it. Maybe we can hasten that 'weathering' to a few days instead of to a few months or years?????
The Japanese have mastered a way to make Urushiol non inflammatory:
But I do thank you for the idea. So far we've gotten a few good ideas. And, if we can find a way to inactivate the urushiol from the toxicodendron in less than a few months' time (i.e., hasten the weathering), we'd all be doing the world a favor!
I didn't mention it but you can see a bottle of the stuff in the pictures I posted at
I didn't mention it (because I was concentrating on the gloves), but I use layering when I cut tunnels in the chaparral of Western Poison Oak (Toxicodendron diversilobum or Rhus diversiloba):
Chemicals alone won't prevent poison oak rash at the huge concentrations I'm being exposed to.
I can see the oils on my gloves and clothes before it turns black. It takes a day or so to turn black but you can see the oil it's so thick (and it takes only a few molecules, the size of a pin point, to give you a rash).
The outer layer offers NO protection other than normal abrasive resistance. It is the layers under it that stop the oils and other problem items.
They can be decontaminated for most other things so I would say washing them isn't a problem.
I've taken dozers down some pretty steep grades. How long is the graded area before it levels off? A dozer with a winch on it would do the job easily.
A bulldozer can go down a very steep slope. The problems occur when you want to go back up. However the dozer comes with a blade attached so you can make a road to the bottom. Some come with winches on the back. The winch will allow you to manuver up and down the slope as well provided there is a handy stump to fasten to. Brush cutters can be mounted on excavators. The excavator will have the ability to reach quite a distance. You need some machinery to clear the land and then you will need to apply a herbicide such as Garlon several times to kill the new sprouts.
Roundup kills the root system, not just the leaves. There are different solutions of Roundup. The full strength stuff is about $100 a gallon. I obliterated a large stand of Bamboo that didn't grow back. Bamboo is a lot harder to get rid of than any poison ivy and poison oak. Some people claim the only way to get rid of Bamboo permanently is to remove all the earth and dispose of it elsewhere.
I understand. But did you look at the pictures of how thick the chaparral is? No way will roundup work. Unless I'm missing something critical.
I haven't been able to use the weed killer yet except on the areas I already cut because there is no way I can think of to spray the stuff if I can't even get my arm into the thicket more than a couple of feet.
I have to go hundreds of yards. The roundup can won't spray that far! :)
So, my plan for the roundup is to keep the path I've cut clear of NEW poison oak growth.
But, even if the roundup did work, I'd still need good gloves to hack it all up and carry it away, wouldn't I? Or do you suggest burning it where it lies or doing some other composting of the poison oak leaves, stems, and roots?
Wrong. Some people simply don't react to it (or don't react much). I'm in that category.
That's exactly my point. I'm one of the lucky ones whose immune system won't react unless it gets an almost impossibly high exposure.
The point is that for some people, including me, "enough" is a very, very large amount, much more than it's possible to get.
I once spent an entire day tearing the stuff out of a fenceline, barehanded. By early afternoon, it had gotten hot enough that I stripped off my shirt. I took no precautions whatever -- I'd been exposed to it enough as a teenager, and not reacted, that I had no reason to worry. Shoving the stuff into trashbags, I had my arms in it up to the shoulders. I was wearing cutoff jeans, too, BTW, so no protection below mid-thigh, or above the waist.
That's a hell of a dose.
Four days later, I had one dime-sized spot of rash on my chest, and another on one forearm -- and that was it.
Years later, as I was changing the brakes on our car at the edge of the driveway (again wearing cutoffs) my wife walked up and asked me if I knew I was sitting in poison ivy. Looked down -- huh. So I am. Oh, well. She was surprised I didn't move -- told her I've been sitting on that plant for half an hour already, so it's too late to make a difference.
No reaction.
I'm 52 years old. The episode with the fenceline is the *only* time in my life I've ever had *any* reaction to it.
That simply isn't true.
Neither is that.
My own experience shows that; I *did* react to it, though very, very mildly, after the day on the fenceline, and, although I *know* I've been in contact with it since (the brake job, for example, and just last year pulling weeds) I have never reacted to it again, at all, ever.
No immunosuppressants here.
A small golf-cart sized bulldozer WOULD be very nice indeed! The area I'm clearing is along a brook so all I really need is to bulldoze one side of the brook for a few hundred yards (maybe about 500 yards in length).
I'm not sure how to measure steepness, but, I can throw a rock and hit the top of trees at the bottom. I'm guessing that I'm thirty to fifty feet above the bottom when I'm at the top. I'd say the bottom is about twenty or thirty feet away from the top in terms of horizontal distance.
Can a small golf-cart sized bulldozer get down that?
Right now, by hand, I can only cut the seasonal stream itself. That is, while I'm standing in the middle of the foot-wide stream, I can hack straight above me and cut the poison oak vines enough so that I can walk down the center of the stream. The opening above the water is about 3 feet wide.
The banks are so steep, that even on the banks that I've cleared, you only have a foot or two to place your feet and you constantly have to grab a tree branch so as to not fall into the channel. I was going to dig at it with a shovel to cut it away but a bulldozer the size of a golf cart would be perfect.
The stream is never level but it's pretty flat at the bottom for most of those 500 yards. I'd say the first 30 or 50 feet are the killer in terms of steepness. If I can get the golf-cart sized bulldozer down and then back up, that would be very nice.
I'll check if u-haul rents bulldozers...
Perfect! I'm gonna get me a pair of these extrication gloves!
Hi Doug,
I'm glad you don't get a serious reaction to poison oak. You're one of the lucky ones.
I did base my statements on research, e.g., see this which said almost exactly what I said:
However, I did read what you wrote which is that you get it very slightly and that you've been heavily exposed many times. (BTW, if you've seen the black marks all over your clothes, as if someone attacked you with a black marker, then you've been heavily exposed, in my opinion.)
Anyway, as I said, I'm very glad you are only slightly reactive to poison oak urushiol. I hope, as you said, that it's a nearly permanent immunity as almost all articles say the apparent immunity changes over time:
But, in the end, you probably don't have a whole lot of special effort T-cells for the poison oak allergen. Lucky for you!
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