Around the Central west of NSW, Blackberry is a big problem! and what makes it so tough to treat is it grows in the most difficult places. Creeklines, hills, around trees are a few of it’s favorite spots and the 2023 to 2024 season has been a great one for thier growth.
Getting into those difficult spots with traditional equipment such as Boom and hand sprayers is quite often impractical (not to mention dangerous!).
Left untreated the plants will only grow bigger and spread, especially ones in creekline’s. I have literally seen blackberry take over whole entire hills like a big green carpet.
Grazon Extra is one of the best products to treat blackberry in my opinion, because the results are normally quick. At 1 litre per hectare mixed with 200 litres of water Grazon is applied in half overlapping passes. This Rate with my T40 can treat up to 8 Hectares a day, which was unthinkable with my old P30.
Grazon is obsorbed through the leaves and after about 8 hours the plant starts to droop and look pretty sick.
The more budget friendly option is using a water soluble granular product called Metsulfuron Methyl (commonly known as Brush-off) which is mixed with a high concentration Glyphosate such as Crucial 600.
The results are quite acceptable with one chemical going through the stem and the other throught the leaves. It also takes a bit longer to see any effect compared to Grazon but is still very effective.
Where Blackberry is present in water courses, such as dams and creeklines I use an aquatic safe Glyphosate 360 (Weedmaster DUO).
There are a multitude of chemical interventions that are used to successfully treat Blackberry! and with my mighty DJI T40 Spray drone I am seeing some pretty promising results.