2018 Teasel Pulling Results

My Teasel removal activities took so little time this year that I can’t even describe the activity as an event.  I spent about four hours walking fields with a history of Teasel infestation and pulled all of the Teasel plants I found.  A total of about 12 acres was searched.

This is my second year of pulling Teasel plants.  Prior to that I collected ripe seed heads on an annual basis.  Last year’s effort occurred about a week prior to expected seed ripening.  This year I began pulling when most plants were just beginning to bloom.  Teasel plants stood above most other plants in the field and were easy to see.  The Teasels were widely distributed across the field as individual plants.  No clusters of plants were found.

This is last year’s harvest of Teasel plants.

This is what I collected this year from the same area, a significant reduction.  There are always a few plants that show up late in the season because they were slow to begin growth or are recovering from injury.  I’ll walk the fields again in the next week or two to search for those late developing plants, but I doubt if I’ll find many.

Pulling is now my preferred method of dealing with Teasel plants.  I can begin pulling when field vegetation is relatively short, so it’s easier to move around and find the plants.  Pulling the plant takes much less time than removing all of the seed heads.  Pulling before seeds are ripe eliminates the chance of spreading seed to other parts of the field.  I think I’ve reached the point where annual Teasel control is going to take very little of my time.  It’s nice to see the fields devoid of invasive Teasel plants.