Subtitle: We need to focus on winning the war and not just the battle
By: Julianne Mason, Restoration Program Coordinator, Forest Preserve District of Will County
April 21, 2020
Like all invasive species, reed canary grass is a formidable opponent. It is aggressive, robust, produces tons of seed, spreads rhizomatously, and can form monocultures in many wetland community types. Even during these shelter-at-home days, we have been able to do solo work to treat reed canary grass in high priority areas. Our current work restrictions have highlighted the need to be both strategic and effective in our treatment actions.
Several years ago, I put in some test plots to compare the longer-term effectiveness of treating reed canary grass with glyphosate, a non-selective herbicide, compared to treating it with clethodim, a grass-specific herbicide. I used 2% AquaNeat (glyphosate product) with 0.4% Pen-A-Trate II, which is our normal nonionic surfactant. For the grass-specific herbicide treatments, I used 1.5% Volunteer (clethodim product) with 1.5% Powerhouse, which has ammonium sulfate (AMS) incorporated in the surfactant. Adding AMS, a fertilizer, to the herbicide solution is suggested on the clethodim label. Unfortunately, clethodim is not approved for use over water; there is no aquatic-approved, grass-specific herbicide. The clethodim treatments were made when the treatment areas were fairly dry and no standing water was present. Plots were sprayed in the late fall, early spring, or late spring in 2017 and 2018.
Photo 1 caption: Reed canary grass plants were treated with clethodim or glyphosate herbicide and marked with pin flags which were color coded to the treatment type. In this plot, the clethodim treatment was pretty effective since no flowering reed canary grass heads are visible in the July photo.
Not surprisingly, the reed canary grass that was treated with glyphosate died quickly. However, glyphosate is a non-selective chemical, and there were dead zones resulting from overspray during the treatments. This was especially significant for the late spring treatments. The reed canary grass was big and tall when it was sprayed, resulting in a lot of herbicide spray used and a lot of overspray death.
Photo 2 caption: Reed canary grass that was sprayed with glyphosate died quickly. The quick kill was gratifying, but note the dead zones from the non-selective chemical’s overspray.
The dead zones were less obvious but still present during the late fall treatments, which were made after many other species had gone dormant, and during the early spring treatments, which had less overspray because the plants were treated when still small. The dead zones were mostly colonized by reed canary grass seedlings, which is not surprising. There must be a lot of reed canary grass seed in the seedbank under reed canary grass plants. Within two years, the reed canary grass stand that was treated with glyphosate during the late spring had returned to a robust reed canary grass stand. If you had seen the end result, you would not have believed that the reed canary grass had been sprayed with herbicide and killed just two years prior.
Photo 3 caption: By the second year after treatment, the area treated with glyphosate had returned to a reed canary grass stand.
In contrast, the reed canary grass plants that were treated with clethodim took many weeks to months to turn yellow and senesce. All of them looked sick and none of them flowered, but they didn’t look especially dead after treatment. Even a year or two after treatment, many of them had resprouted weakly and were not fully dead, just severely stunted. However, the other plants in the area that had been previously suppressed by the reed canary grass, like sedges and wetland forbs, were unaffected by the herbicide treatment and had greatly increased in vigor and cover. Two years after the initial herbicide treatment with clethodim, the treated area had recovered the native cover and diversity of a sedge meadow.
Photo 4 caption: In the clethodim treatment plots, reed canary grass was killed or significantly reduced. Sedges and forbs were unaffected by the herbicide treatment and greatly increased in vigor and cover.
Overall, the best results in this study were: 1) treated in the late fall with 2% glyphosate, when the reed canary grass was still slightly green but almost all the other vegetation was dormant, and/or 2) treated with 1.5% clethodim in the fall or early spring, with a follow-up treatment to missed individuals and ones that did not fully die.
Photo 5 caption: Reed canary grass was treated with clethodim herbicide, and a sedge-dominated community remained two years after the treatment.
Although following up with multiple treatments of clethodim may seem like more work, I think it is worthwhile and actually less work in the end because it allows the native sedges and forbs to flourish. In many of our natural areas, and especially immediately under invasive plants, the seed bank may not be our friend. It may have seeds of more invasive plants instead of native species. Creating “holes” in the vegetation with non-selective chemical use can just make space for more invasive plant recruitment, spray and repeat, spray and repeat. To break out of that cycle, an end game is to facilitate renewed dominance of the native matrix, which seems to happen better and more quickly when a grass-specific herbicide is used to treat the reed canary grass.
Photo 6 caption: Comparison of two adjacent plots where the reed canary grass was treated with clethodim and glyphosate herbicide, viewed two years after the treatment.
NEWS: Due to Covid 19 crisis we are postponing the GRN workshop of this August to next August, 2021 in Barrington, Illinois.
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Great article! I have noticed very similar results, but only anecdotally. Thank you for taking the time to compare the two treatments.
I use clethodim for pretty much all my wetland plantings and will only use glyphosate in the areas that never dry out. It has been producing very similar results!
Bill and Julianne,
Thanks so much for this article and study. Bill, as you know, we’re got a pretty signifciant RCG problem in a portion of our little prairie north of Kirkland. The land owner was ready to spray with glyphosate until I suggested (for multiple times :-)) that it look at clethodim. Thankfully he wound up using clethodim.
Interesting! I will try Cleth in any high and dry patches of RCG that we find. Thanks for posting.
Glad that you’re finding similar results
I wonder if the RCG areas treated with cleth revert back to pre-treatment levels 4-5 years down the road without repeated management
My experience has been the grass herbicides need reapplication every few years. The herbicide sets back the grass, but does not kill it. I have turned reed canary grass meadows to sedge meadows with a few annual applications of grass herbicide. I am pretty sure if I stopped for five years the reed canary grass would be back to dominance.
The glyphosate/imazapyr will kill the grass, and all else, and the RCG will likely return without consistent follow up. Sigh.
For fall applications of Clethodim, what does “late fall” mean? After the first frost? When average temperatures fall below a certain point? I’m getting ready to spot treat pockets of RCG in our prairie restoration (we’re in south central WIsconsin, west of Madison) with Clethodim for the first time. In the past I tried Poast (Sethoxydim), but that resulted in only temporary top-kill. Heavy rains from the past two years led to a near-complete RCG takeover of one section, and as a last resort I wiped out most of it with Glyphosate last fall. Maybe the floods were a mixed blessing.
Juli Mason will get back to you.
Hi Peter, the “late fall” treatments were done on 10/21/2016 and 10/20/2017 in Joliet, Illinois. Both dates were a week or few weeks before the first frost, on relatively warm fall days (high temps of 55 and 80, respectively. The reed canary grass and some sedges still has green on them, but other vegetation was pretty well senesced. Good luck on your treatments!
Thanks @usagi2215, that’s very helpful. For us that would probably mean the last week or so of September, depending on the temps. Just gotta make sure the warm season grasses are done and the RCG is not dormant…
Do you have a recommendation for when to apply the spring treatment of clethodim? I’m wondering if perhaps I should be looking for a certain plant height rather than a set date (I am in south central Wisconsin). I’m assuming that the spraying will be most effective once there is a certain amount of surface area. But RCG grows at an explosive rate by May, if not sooner. I applied clethodim for the first time in the fall, and sowed a good amount of fox sedge seed. The the RCG is already a few inches high and growing. It usually starts to flower by the end of May/first week of June. Thank you!
I remember Clethodim being better applied to actively growing RCG. I agree you likely want the grass stems emerged several inches before applying herbicide, and they will grow fast as you say. Many times, I have sprayed RCG when the plants are in early flower, so likely not growing actively, but I seemed to get good results, which I noticed a year later when the RCG was way reduced and the ground cover was then Carex dominated. In this blog you will see a post about using clethodim and one about using glyphosate.
Hi plweil, I would spray the RCG now or very soon. With the warm spring so far in the Midwest, it’s already several inches tall and growing fast. I have had best results with post-burn treatments in the very early spring when the grass is only a few inches tall. Good luck!
– Juli Mason
Thanks Juli. We did do an early burn and yes, it’s already a few inches tall. I’m going to treat it as soon as we get a dry day (looks like sometime next week). At the rate this stuff grows, there’s probably no need to worry about having enough surface area to spray. How much clethodim do you use per gallon? – Peter Weil
Hi Peter, I would recommend the max allowable rate of clethodim, which is 1.5% (or 2 oz/gal).
Thanks Juli!
Hi Juli, Just to clarify, I’m using Envoy Plus, which is 12.6% clethodim. I’m not sure what strength of Clethodim you’re using. The guy at the coop recommended 2oz/gal for Envoy Plus. Thanks, Peter
Hi plweil, they mention in the text that they used Volunteer clethodim which is 2.0 lb/gal and 26.4%. Your Envoy Plus would be half that concentration. I’ve run into this confusion myself several times now. It can be confusing when different manufacturers make different concentrations of the same herbicide.
Thanks for this very useful information!
I had a question/comment about the choice of adjuvant. Rosen Powerhouse is a surfactant, dimethyl siloxane (silicone), ammonium sulfate (AMS) blend. It looks like the surfactant is probably a nonionic surfactant but I’m not certain. The labels of the clethodim specify the use of crop oil concentrates or methylated seed oils type adjuvants and AMS for maximal uptake. A 1996 Weed Technology paper by David L. Jordan et. al., also showed sometimes dramatically better results on several trials on grasses (none were RCG) using COC or MSO-based adjuvants. Have you tried any MSO-based adjuvants with clethodim?
Colleagues: RCG is bolting at this time in late May. Will applying Clethodim to RCG have any effect? Stop is from producing seed perhaps?
Hi, I found a response from Bill Kleiman to this question April 7, 2020 above. He said he got good results treating in early flower stage of growth. Some of the RCG is just starting to show flower right now my area May 5, 2021, in Chiwaukee Prairie (SE WI).
Sorry, but that last sentence in my comment should have read— Some of the RCG was just starting to show flower in my area yesterday, May 26, 2021, in Chiwaukee Prairie (SE WI), not May 5.
Hi, yes, treating reed canary grass with clethodim herbicide during early flower does stop seed production and at least stunt mature clumps. Smaller individuals seem to be more likely to be killed outright. Good luck! – Juli Mason
I was wondering the same thing. I have a few scattered spots where, despite Clethodim treatment 4-5 weeks ago, some RCG is showing signs of flowering. The only explanations I can think of is that either I missed a few spots (I treated a number of discontinuous patches), some RCG emerged later, or some was hidden by the remains of the pesky Willow Herb that moved in last year (that’s a different topic). Or maybe all of these. The majority of the RCG that I treated is either short and yellowed or looks totally wiped out.
Where do I find information on the 2021 GRN workshop? Will the control of Reed Canary Grass, including non-herbicidal methods, be a topic of discussion?
Due to Covid we skipped our 2021 GRN workshop. We will resume in Summer 2022 with a workshop in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago.
There will be people there who deal with invasive reed canary grass. Typically, the host is describing the stewardship they have done on a site that we are hiking through. Lots of management is discussed.
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I would like to know where on the label you found a concentration of 1.5% or 2 oz per gallon to use. I am using Agri Star Clethodim 2E which uses the same label as your Volunteer , 26.4% clethodim as AI, and the only place the label says anything about mixing as a percent solution is under the section Spot Treatment where it states a rate of 1/4% (.25%) or .33 oz per gallon to 1/2% (.5%) or 0.65oz per gallon.
Our JD9 hand gun nozzle runs with the boomless 50 gallon sprayer on that tractor. The boomless does about a 25 gallons per acre of mix. That 1% solution matches with the high rate of 32 ounces per acre I see in my label for grasses at the high rate. Reed canary is a robust perennial that is rhizomatous so there is a lot of plant matter there that needs more herbicide. I agree with you that for a spot spray that 1% seems high. For clethodim we tend to spray with the hand nozzle with a sweeping fast motion so the ounces per acre are likely closer to 32 ounces per acre. The label focuses mostly on agricultural crops and some interpretation is used for our purposes. Getting the percent herbicide in the mix dialed in is important. We can also save money if we can control a weed with less percent of expensive herbicide.
I’m a little confused. First, your reply says 1% spray solution but above you are recommending 1.5% in the reply to plweil.
More importantly you are by definition, spot spraying. Using a hand gun and boom spraying with known, calibrated nozzles are two completely different methods of application. Gallons per acre requires a travel speed to calculate. Traveling at 40 mph while pulling the trigger on your JD9 would most certainly give a different GPA than if you were traveling at 4 MPH. GPA and percent can not be calculated from each other.
I am not necessarily against “off label” use. I have been using “dims” for probably 20 years, first with sethoxydim as Poast and now with clethodim. I know how tough RCG is, which is why I am interested to know what other people are using and how. The last two years on my 80 acres, half of which are creek course and associated wetlands, I have experienced a resurgence of RCG I thought I had killed. The plants are extremally strong with leaves almost 1″ wide, not exactly indicative of seedlings or first year plants. My thought is that I might be just top killing as I see no seed heads later in the summer. This is why I am interested in knowing if a higher concentration might be warranted and has been used.
I’m not thinking resistance is the issue here for two reasons. First, the plants I hit are being effected, they stop growing and brown down. Second, the plant are not seeding to pass along any genetics. Bob
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Most helpful blog I’ve read on addressing RCG. Thank you. Sorry but still confused on %. That is, ounces of clethodim per gallon of water for hand sprayer. Hypothetical, if the active ingredient in a specific herbicide is 50% and you want to apply at 1% do you double—-so address the fact not 100% active ingredient.
Julianne will likely respond but in case it takes her a while, a 1% solution typically means 1% of the herbicide, not 1% of the active ingredient.
Hi Julianne,
I am currently conducting a study looking at the effect of fall spraying of clethodim and mowing on reed canary grass. I just finished analyzing the data from my two field seasons and am seeing very little effect from the clethodim. Is there an email address that I could contact you at? I’m interested in hearing more about your trials to see if I can pinpoint the reason for the lack of control I’m seeing.
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