The Big Three Dangers – Imported Red Fire Ants, Africanized Honey Bees and Poison Ivy – Part 4

Poison Ivy eradication – We asked the Washington County Agricultural Extension Agent how to eradicate poison ivy from the property. His recommendation is to cut a foot out of the vine. On small vines, we use a machete. On the thick vines that are several inches in diameter, we use the chainsaw. Remove the foot-long piece and dispose of it. Then spray or paint the fresh cut, both ends, on the vine with either Roundup or Remedy. The plant will soon die, even the massive root system underground. Dead vine will hold on to the tree trunk it was growing on for several months and it is still poisonous as are the leaves. Eventually pieces of the vine will fall out of the tree. Be very aware of this “fallout” which we treat as if it were nuclear waste. We use long fireplace tongs to grab the fallout and carry it over to the creek or the deep hole the creek carved out, “the Hole”, and toss the toxic material away. Although still poisonous, down in the bottom of the Hole it is not likely to contact humans. For a couple of big poison ivy clean-up projects, we donned the consumer equivalent of HASMAT (hazardous materials) suits to do the work. One website I saw years ago explained that a serious poison ivy rash is the only true dermatological emergency.

A question frequently asked is: Why don’t you just burn the fallout poison ivy after its dead as you do with the other brush burn on Dogwood Ranch? The reason is that the stuff is so nasty that when the urushiol oil from the plant burns, little droplets of urushiol go up into the smoke. If the smoke blows on to you, so does the poison. It gets on your skin and permeates your clothes and gets in your eyes and hair. Breathing urushiol tainted-smoke takes that toxic poison into your mouth, throat and lungs and can serious respiratory problems. Please, never burn poison ivy.

When we first acquired Dogwood, there was lots of poison ivy growing in the fences and up the beautiful oak trees in the civilized area. We spent about two years cleaning that up so we now have more or less a poison ivy free zone. We are vigilant and quickly destroy any sneaky vine trying to get a foothold in this area. Except for the problems it causes humans, poison ivy an amazing plant; it is perhaps the ultimate poisoning machine - all parts of the plant are poisonous, it is difficult to destroy, when burned it is still poisonous, when dead its defense mechanism still works and the oil on clothes and other objects can remain hazardous for years. Remember: “Leaflets three, let it be! Leaflets three, quickly flee.”