For years we hit the pastures with grub hoe's. Every spring, tornado season was thistle season too.
Only way to kill it was to dig up the root, all of the root. It's a biennial too! We have 7 pastures, difficult to dig all of them each year. So it was a never ending battle but we kept it under control. Sadly, that kid didn't do anything about them and they got bad. The pastures were wrecked in fact.
My cousin had to spot spray to get several plants back under control. By spot spray i mean a tank on the back of a quad. I even burned a pasture before my cousin brought over a herd trying to kill some of the weeds. This is the 2nd year of trying to get the pastures back in shape, still have a ways to go.
Anyway, he was telling me about a new spray for bull thistle. Said it made spaying a single year instead of multi-year project. I'll give him a call tomorrow and get the name.
Neat thing about bull thistle... it edible. Peel the stalk with a veggie peeler (wear welding gloves). Slice it up and fry it like okra with flour.
For folks who haven't seen thistle... there's a dozen species but all look similar. Not a pleasant plant.
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