Honeysuckle (bush) replacements/control

I have 20 acres about 17 are wooded we have two plants that are issues grapes and Honeysuckle. For more info on the property go to https://permies.com/t/41990/woodland/Suggestions-shade-loving-plants

I'm only worried about the honeysuckle and want to reduce it and disadvantage it.

My current plan is to chop and drop the honeysuckle using it as a mulch. From there I would like to plant other plants to take its place. We have plenty of black berries and wild rose on the property so I would like to use other plants.

Have any suggestions to replace this bush?

My thought = use animals. Goats, sheep, cows will clear those out. Or use beehives - lots of them.

When you say "honeysuckle", what honeysuckle are you referring too? I ask because if it is japanese honeysuckle, you DO NOT want to chop and drop. It will grow right where you drop it. I saw in the other thread you're in zone 6. Maybe it isn't quite as invasive there but here in zone 8, it is the bane of a gardeners existence when trying to clear large tracts of it. If it is japanese honeysuckle, I suggest piling it up in a separate area until the plant material is 100% dried out. Then it can safely be used for compost.

We do not have japanese honeysuckle from what I can tell japanese honeysuckle is a vine with the fruit being black. What we have is a bush with red fruit, I will work on identifying what variety it is later this year but it is a bit hard to pick 1 from 180 varieties.

In the future I will have bees on the farm and chickens but I live 80min from the farm so I'm not doing much that will need attention at first. (Working of getting everything ready to build.)

The honeysuckle is only located in the under story. When chopping and dropping I will be dropping them at the site where they were chopped from, so if they root it will be competing with the original plant. Later I will go back and do it again, all during this time I will be adding other plants in the area to compete.

Since we don't advocate the use of herbicides on this forum, your options are either you dig it out by the roots or you can continually cut it back until it finally dies. I've done both to remove honeysuckle, but with 17 acres digging probably would not be practical unless you have the right machinery. For continual cutting to be effective, I'd recommend you cut the honeysuckle to the ground in early spring once it fully leafs out, and then repeat every month till the bush finally gives up.

Right now, the honeysuckle has a lot of energy stored in its roots that will be used to make leaves. If you cut it now, the honeysuckle will simply respond by sending up a massive number of water shoot branches in the spring.

Sean Henry wrote:
In the future I will have bees on the farm ...

Er...
If your honeysuckle looks anything like mine:

Leave it alone. The bees go insane over it!

Sean Henry wrote:We do not have japanese honeysuckle from what I can tell japanese honeysuckle is a vine with the fruit being black. What we have is a bush with red fruit, I will work on identifying what variety it is later this year but it is a bit hard to pick 1 from 180 varieties.

Odds are that you've got tatarian honeysuckle. It's pretty widespread in North America - http://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=lota