Oriental Bittersweet Control?

I have a bit of an invasive issue and I'm having a time managing it.

On my property line is a few apple trees that have gotten wrapped up with oriental bittersweet that is just taking over. The weight actually caused one of the trees to collapse last year. Cutting the thickest of the vines have killed back quite a bit of mass but new shoots are persistent. There is a nearby garage and woodpile that make just tilling up the ground impossible so its been a lot of manual control with clippers.

I want to see if there are recommendations for management as everything I read advocates for chemical intervention. There has to be some other way, I'm sure.

Thanks in advance.  

My suggestion would be to cut the vines down to their base.

Next, I would cover the base of these plants with something that light cannot get to.

Some suggestions:

6" to 12" wood chips or other mulch
tarp
cardboard with wood chips or mulch on top.

Be sure to compost the vines in a very hot compost so that none have a chance to sprout.

This might offer other suggestions:

https://permies.com/t/25937/Bittersweet-properties

I have managed this year to just focus on manually lopping the vines that I could get to. I needed to reduce mass before I focused on the roots.

Large vines can be left out to dry and go right through a homeowner sized woodchipper without issue. I made use of the biomass in conjunction with forsythia pruning.

I'm sure spring will bring round two of growth for the bittersweet but I'll break out the pickaxe when that happens. We will find out which one of us has more energy.

Sounds like it might be a case for girdling.  While the downward transport of sugars goes through the inner bark (phloem), the upward transport of water and nutrients goes through the wood (xylem). So if you girdle all the shoots of the plant, the roots will waste resources by sending water upwards, and not get anything back. The vines keep growing for a bit, but the roots receive none of the sugar produced by the top growth, and so eventually starve to death. In theory at least...

I have successfully managed a large infestation of bittersweet vine in a woodlot. the method I used was cut them a couple feet above the base. that completely kills the vine above. then return every year or less to cut away new shoots. my vines died within two years. I cut a couple feet above ground to make it easier to destroy new shoots. no poison used

An interesting discovery.

The area of infestation has a mass of vines coming out of one particular part of the ground by my neighbors apple trees/barn. We dug a little ways down only to find a ton of roofing slate laid flat in layers of the dirt.

The vine had shot roots through the slate taking up an available space and nothing could compete with it.

We are currently excavating the slate shingle by hand and ripping up a mass of root material. Not pretty or fun but hopefully will have a big impact.

tom gram wrote:I have successfully managed a large infestation of bittersweet vine in a woodlot. the method I used was cut them a couple feet above the base. that completely kills the vine above. then return every year or less to cut away new shoots. my vines died within two years. I cut a couple feet above ground to make it easier to destroy new shoots. no poison used

I want to thank Tom and give a big endorsement to his method.

I found that it is better to leave some growth above the ground in order to better manage sprouting. If you do it at the ground level, it sneaks up on you. If you have it a foot or so high it catches your eye quicker. I have managed to remove quite a bit of the bittersweet and have introduced things such as borage to compete in the area. Just keep snipping and monitoring.

I'm still fighting this patch of bittersweet. The patch has now been reduced to around half the original size. The biggest hurdle to control is that there are a lot of obstacles in my way to cutting some of the vines.

Between a machete and some loppers, I prefer the loppers to ensure I have cut through the vines.

I'm hoping to reduce it down by at least 3/4 this time next year. We will see if I am successful!