I have a 10 acre property with about a 3rd plus of it in low land area near the Columbia river... the road in-fact acts as a dike to the river/bay. There is a small cabin on the piece and I have been dealing with reed canary grass. I bought the property 8 years back. I managed to keep those 3 to 4 acres under control through brush hogging, heavy weed eating and mowing... I bulldozed a fair amount of the lower land in the summer months and got regular grass growing back until I let it go around 4 years ago... I am trying to get the ground back under control this summer. The RCG has typically grown from 6 to 8 ft high and as it died and folded over it has virtually made a carpet 2 to 3 ft thick underneath the current growth this year... (This is hell to weed eat through) I can do very little to reduce the water saturation in the soil and I'm not wanting to use any chemicals if I can help it... I've allowed the Willow to come back in, near tide gate drainage ditches, and have tried to introduce small stock bamboo to an area perhaps 1/2 acre that I wont be using (I have had no noticeable success at this point)... I want to keep most of the low area shade free minus the existing Alder trees...
After all this being said and reading through the previous posting in this thread I have a couple of questions... I noticed one post mentioned that RCG could be used as "Hog Fuel"
Would this be something marketable similar to chipping logs etc (such as salable to a mill)? (Although I doubt this would be economical due to my minimal acreage) I like the idea of Thistle taking over and am going to try this in a small area on my property but I am wondering if anyone has attempted big stock Bamboo 2 to 6 in stock thickness in a heavy RCG area??? (This I'm wanting for maybe a half acre or a little more of near the willow)... 3rd question is how well would goats work on this type of grass? I can switch them to high ground/different vegatation to offset their diet but I'm wondering if it is healthy for goats to eat much of this grass? Does anyone have experience with this?... Lastly I have thought about burning with a large propane torch but I am nervous on using this method due to the cabin being in the center of it all... Even with it being pretty wet land and cutting fire breaks I've never seen how volatile RCG is with the 2-3 ft of dead grass underneath and fresh growth up as high as it is...??? Suggestions??? I apologize for this bombardment of questions but any extra info would be greatly appreciated! I will post back on the outcome of these attempts... Lastly I just want to say that I'm surprised Reed Canary Grass is not mentioned in the book of Revelations!!! Thanks for your time.
