How to kill Horsetails

[alternety]

Moderation Note: These posts were moved from the Introduction Forum because the thread became specific. :)

 

Yes Turtle. Ergo - I am trying to take a look at uptake of the material in a specific plant in comparison to several other chemicals.

 

It also decays into fertilizer after a while and is used as an additive to compost piles.

[Moontanman]

Ammonium sulfamate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

It is sold under these brand names

 

Ammonium sulfamate is distributed under the following tradenames, which are principally herbicidal product names: Amicide, Amidosulfate, Ammate, Amcide, Ammate X-NI, AMS, Fyran 206k, Ikurin, Sulfamate, AMS and Root-Out.

[alternety]

It is unfortunately not sold or manufactured under those names anymore (except possibly root-out). It is no longer a listed herbicide. A while back all sorts of chemicals where reevaluated by the EU. This one is so cheap and generic no one went to the trouble (expense) of redoing tests. I believe one company tried but they were ignored. It did not get relisted.

 

It appears to be one of the more benign of herbicides. It decays to good things and is not particularly harmful even before it does. The delisting appears to have spread.

 

I have done many many hours of searching. I need an industrial supplier that will sell small (for them) quantities. I have found none willing to do so. If someone knows of such a source, not just a manufacturer, but one who actually sells to civilians in small quantities, that would solve my problem.

[Turtle]

Yes Turtle. Ergo - I am trying to take a look at uptake of the material in a specific plant in comparison to several other chemicals.

 

It also decays into fertilizer after a while and is used as an additive to compost piles.

 

 

it is a contact effect according to my cornell source.

Ammonium Sulfamate

AMS is a contact herbicide which means that it injures only those parts of the plant to which it is applied .

 

It appears to be one of the more benign of herbicides. It decays to good things and is not particularly harmful even before it does. The delisting appears to have spread.

17 Minutes Ago 09:27 AM

 

i guess "more benign" is relative characterization.

ACUTE TOXICITY

Ammonium sulfamate is moderately toxic to human beings. The effects of acute exposure to AMS include irritation of the skin' date=' eyes, and digestive tract, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, slowed breathing, convulsions, hallucinations, coma, physical or mental exhaustion, and collapse (5, 9). Contact with ammonium sulfamate may cause burns to the skin and eyes (24, 30). The dust of ammonium sulfamate is irritating to the nose and throat and can cause coughing or difficult breathing if it is inhaled (23). Inhalation of 5,000 mg/m3 of air is immediately dangerous to life or health (18). Ingestion of ammonium sulfamate may cause gastrointestinal disturbances, such as nausea or diarrhea, in humans (18).

Repeated applications of a 4% solution to the front side of one arm of each of five human subjects for five days showed no skin irritation (15). It did not cause irritation when it was injected just under the skin (subcutaneously) in rats; when applied to rabbits eyes, it did not cause conjunctivitis (8).

 

Studies show that 1,600 mg/kg to 3,900 mg/kg of AMS are lethal to one-half of the rats that are experimentally fed the herbicide (3, 20). This amount of AMS is referred to as its oral lethal dose fifty, or LD50, and indicates that it takes 1,600 to 3,900 milligrams of AMS, for each kilogram of body weight of the rat, to kill 50 percent of the rats tested. (The lower the LD50 is for a chemical, the more toxic it is; the higher the LD50 the less toxic is the chemical).

...

ECOLOGICAL EFFECTS

Effects on Birds

AMS is highly toxic to birds. The oral LD50 in wild birds is 2,370 micrograms (ug)/kg (15).

[/quote']

 

i do see they mention it as a fertilizer though.

INTRODUCTION

...AMS is also used as a fertilizer.

 

what plant species exactly do you plan to dose if i may be so bold as to ask? :)

[alternety]

Horsetail

[Turtle]

Horsetail

 

i love those!! old school pot scrubbers. :hihi: what, again if i may be so bold to ask, do you have in mind to do with them there horsy tails? inquiring minds want to know. :Alien: :D

 

hey i was just thinking maybe you could synthesize some ammonium sulfamate at home from easier to get compounds??? we got some chemists here so maybe start a thread to that end. :)

[alternety]

I want them to die. Screaming if possible.

[Moontanman]

Horsetails implies an aquatic environment, applying a weed killer to an aquatic ecosystem would be a very bad thing dude.

[Turtle]

I want them to die. Screaming if possible.

 

:D now the truth outs. :hihi: the gods love screaming deaths like no other. :):Alien:

is this a potential upticker in horestail screamage for your environs?

Equisetum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The Field Horsetail (E. arvense) can be a nuisance weed, readily regrowing from the rhizome after being pulled out. It is also unaffected by many herbicides designed to kill seed plants, however, as E. arvense prefers an acid soil, lime may be used to assist in eradication efforts to bring the soil pH to 7 or 8.[4]...

 

what are your environs ecological niche speaking?

[freeztar]

If you want to kill horsetail, then find a dinosaur. :)

They are one of the oldest plants in N. America. They were around during the time of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago. It's a remarkable plant.

 

Horsetails like moist soil, but they don't like to get their feet too wet. :Alien:

If you could flood the area, you can kill them off (and everything else underwater most likely). It's a much better option than "fertilizers". :hihi:

[Southtown]

I want them to die. Screaming if possible.

:) I like this guy already.

[alternety]

The horsetails are not in an "aquatic" area. They like damp; but they are not fanatics about it. I have some nice stands on top of a 12' high pile of dirt on top of a 25' above grade fill. And this has been the driest spring/summer recorded. The AS material is also not particularly harmful to invertebrates and fish either. Sources vary, and excerpts mislead. It was recommended for watershed use because of minimal toxicity for birds, bees, deer, and others and decomposition into harmless compounds.

 

I am not really interested in a prolonged debate on the material. I have spent a lot of time understanding it. Nothing here has been new information to me. I just want to buy some.

[freeztar]

I just want to buy some.

 

So, no go on the "making it" aspect?

[CraigD]

Welcome to hypography, alternety, and best of luck with you weed-exterminating plot! :hyper:

I have done many many hours of searching. I need an industrial supplier that will sell small (for them) quantities. I have found none willing to do so. If someone knows of such a source, not just a manufacturer, but one who actually sells to civilians in small quantities, that would solve my problem.

I see what you mean about Ammonium sulfamate herbicide being hard to find :)

 

Although lots of gardening how-to sites state that you can get it “any home improvement or gardening store”, (not only as a weed-killer, but apperantly also as a concrete and brick cleaner, in dry or liquid form) I don’t find it with a search of the websites of a couple big chain stores.

 

It appears pretty easy to get in reagent-quality quantities as amall as 0.5 kg from any of the many online chemical supply companies (eg: Ammonium Sulfamate, Reagent, ACS - A - Alphabetical Listing of Chemicals * 7773-06-0), but seems a bit expensive and reactive to literally throw around – my guess is the stuff should get processed into with some sort of inert material before its suitable for use as a yard/garden product. However, it’s everywhere I’v seen described as “very water soluble”, so you might get good result dissolving a small quantity of it in water and spraying - though it would be nice to have a rough sense of what dry-to-water ratio to use.

 

Since it seems to have a reputation as a “good/green” herbicide among organic growers, you might have luck corresponding with folk or supply businesses catering to them.

[freeztar]

When I lived in Washington State, I had a project to eliminate all the Japanese Knotweed from a small stretch of stream. I researched the problem to no end. I eventually settled on starving the roots by constant vegetative removal. It resulted (over three months) in a much less prolific plant presence. Though, the summer found any positive results lacking. :)

 

The reason I bring this story up is because aggressive weeds will make you work for their death. If you have an established patch of horsetail, it's going to take some work!

 

While researching how to deal with Japanese Knotweed, back in the day, I found some success in using black plastic. It starves the plant of light, and after months you can peak in and see the death. It's a slow process, but the only effective way to deal with evasive weeds is to starve the roots. Chemicals can help, but they don't get to the root of the problem. :hyper:

[Michaelangelica]

Isn't it used in bombs?

That might be why large quantities are restricted?

[alternety]

AS might be usable in explosives, but there are a bunch of much easier to get and better alternatives. Simple ammonium nitrate is a good oxidizer, common, and cheap.

 

I have tried black plastic. It grew through it. I have seen it grow through black top roads.

 

The only non-chemical alternative I have seen is to starve it to death by cutting off or poisoning all the shoots as soon as they come up. I am in the fifth year of this plan. It is reacting very well. There is much more of it now.

 

Commonly available herbicides kill the above surface growth, but they do it too quickly and it does not get to the roots/nodes that need to be killed. AS behaves like food. Therein lies the interest.

 

A serious particle accelerator or gamma source might get it but the active nodes can be 10 - 20' underground. It would take a nuke.:) The neighbors would not be amused. In point of fact the neighbors are clueless eco freaks. They don't want me to use anything more chemically complicated than sand to any purpose on my land. They probably marched to stop nukes back when and now are wondering why the hell we have burned all that non-renewable carbon base fuel for electricity and ruined the atmosphere. And why we can't fix it quick since they stopped research and design on clean, safe nukes that cause less pollution than coal. They believe that wind, solar, et al wil fix it but do not understand that the grid needs to work 24X7. They used sever knee jerking to turn corn into ethanol (using this for bourbon or white lightening this is not a bad move) but it makes a rotten fuel, we cannot possibly make enough, and they made people around the world starve becasue corn prices and availability went to hell.

 

Well, that was a bit of a digression.:hyper:

 

Every spring I check daily for spore pods. They can go from nothing showing to full blown in a day. They have between 10 gigaterajillion and 1000000000 gigaterajillion spores per pod. I really enjoy ripping off their sex organs. Take this as a cautionary point in further responses.:hihi: