Another Way To Handle Tree Stumps?

[Eric Scantlebury]

I would imagine that renting one of those plus the generator and compressor it would need would be way more than the $100 or so to rent the proper tool - a stump grinder. Just my .02

[Jim85CJ]

[L W]

hollow it out fill with dirt & plant something in it. ZZ

[gary davis]

This has to be the original way to compost! Good on your dad...a leader in compost technology! :) Gary Fort Langley BC Canada

[gary davis]

Powdered milk...responding to 'top poster' (scroll up for his/her post). As a youth we used powdered milk and found that if it was left in the fridge for...a period of time before drinking, we couldn't tell the difference...:) except for the price. It was/is cheaper. Gary Fort Langley BC Canada

[Kurt]

Since we're on this topic, I cut down 4 old fruit trees that were sick. All had roots near the surface from lack of proper watering over the years. (I live in So. Cal) I drilled a few holes in the stumps, put in stump poison, and let them sit a few weeks. I then rented a stump grinder and ground them out.

The problem now are shoots coming up everywhere from roots still under the surface out within 6-12 feet of the old stumps. Will these eventually diminish and die out? I pull them regularly.

[William Wagner]

Consider covering them with a dense mulch like news papers etc. Then be ruthless with any that can make it thru..

Bill

[Bro Jack]

I had the same problem with hybrid poplars, but if you keep pulling and mowing, the roots won't receive nourishment from the leaves and eventually die. It's a pain for a while but you have to be a little persistent.

Jack

[default]

You don't even have to pull them, unless you're running around there barefoot. Just mow right over them and they'll stop in a couple years.

[Kurt]

Thanks all, this is what I've been told from a couple folks.

[rj]

If you don't want to keep mowing, apply Roundup with a paint brush to the shoots.

[Ian Stirling]

No problem, the same treatment works just fine.

[gary davis]

Humm...no! Don't ever use Roundup. We are trying to kill a former tree not the drinking waters. Gary Fort Langley BC Canada

[Michael Baugh]

I suggest going to the "unwanted trees" section of the info at

also suggest that you consider that the product is immediately degraded by exposure to soil. Even mixing it with pond water can cause a completely ineffective solution to be produced, because of the dirt likely to be in it. So I suggest that 'ground water pollution' not be seen as such a likely problem. All of the sprouts need to have the product brushed onto their leaves, and they'll take it back into their collective systems, and the trunk as well. Also, I suggest checking to verify that the tree is a type designated as being susceptible to the product. In other words, following manufacturer's instructions.

Also, feel free to give alternate info, such as from hardcopy of

"Feng, J.C., and Thompson, D. G., 1990, Fate of glyphosate in a Canadian forest watershed. 2. Persistence in foliage and soils: J. Agric. Food Chem., v. 38, no. 4, pp. 1118-1125."

if applicable.

[Ralf G. Toennies]

[paghat]

I have often seen it repeated that unwanted trees can be killed by driving copper nails into a tree, &amp stumps can be stopped from suckering. One method is to completely ring the bottom of a tree with 10d copper nails at one-inch intervals, then wait two years. I've never seen any actual study that proved this would work; if it did seem to work, I suspect it would be because of the damage done to the bark; removing the bark from around the base of a tree would be vastly more certain way to kill the poor tree.

Copper at high enough levels certainly is toxic to plants, & can suppress, for example, algae growth in a pond. At extremely low levels however it is not harmful, & copper as a solid is so slow extremely slow to decay that copper was traditionally used in roofing & boat manufacture as one of the most stable metals. I do not know for certain, but I do not believe a toxic level of copper can leached out of copper nails.

If it could, then so too would copper trellises & copper watering pots & copper flower pots kill stuff, & water running off roofs with copper trim would be toxified. I'm aware of no evidence that this is true. Here is a typical line of garden products made of copper:

they were ground up into filings & mixed into the garden they would be harmful, but nothing short of that I'd reckon.

To kill whatever life is left in a stump, drilling a few holes &amp filling them with copper sulfate might indeed kill whatever life is left in it. Copper sulfate is available from a plumber supply. I'd do some more research before I tried it though. By right of killing funguses, copper might SLOW DOWN the decay of a stump, which will otherwise be broken down over time by funguses.

The copper nail thing might be credible, but I'd have to see some data to believe it. It seems that just about everyone has HEARD it works, but almost nobody knows where to get copper nails, so I suspect it's just one of those perpetually repeated rumors that no one has actually tested. When I made a quick-search for any study or proof, I could find nothing definitive, though the International Society of Arboriculture says it is a myth, that if there were any truth to it, fungicides which deliver vastly greater amounts of copper to a plant or tree would kill it .

Another non-study which nevertheless makes a lot of sense is on-line at Garden World, a footnote to an article on building stuff with copper for the garden: "It is a commonly held misconception or 'old wives tale' that copper nails kill trees. Copper in its metallic form is not toxic to trees. The only damage that may have occurred is simply mechanical. Thus, if there are enough nails around the circumference of a tree to completely girdle it, then it will die, but otherwise there will be little damage other than a potential point of entry to decay fungi."

A real field study would be more valuable, of course, but I strongly suspect the assessment of this notion as an "old wives tale" is the correct assessment.

-paghat the ratgirl

[default]

Seagoing boats are (well, were) copperbottomed because it's sufficiently toxic to reduce the amount of crud that grows on them. I don't know if that's true in fresh-water, or not. In any case, maybe copper nails would help if you then pissed all over the stump in question? I'm still in favor of an axe and shovel.

--Goedjn

[Stormin Mormon]

Where does one get copper nails? I'm not sure I want to know. vampire supply house?

[Repeating Rifle]

in article [e-mail], Stormin Mormon at cayoung61-#spamblock*[e-mail] wrote on 7/7/04 5:38 PM:

I do not know about copper nails per se. Maybe someone still nails copper bottoms onto boats.

In any event, if you dip steel nails into copper sulfate, comper will plate out on it. If you start with a clean nail, the copper may even end up sticking.

Bill

[Frogleg]