Propane weed burner

[jcummins]

Moved from Texas to Illinois, and now have a 7-8 acre pond. Really like it, good fishing to. BUT.....prefer not spraying chemicals on weeds at pond edge. Thinking of ideas how to go about maintaining it, and thought of a propane weed burner.

Has anyone used for this? How did it work?

 

[missingstexas]

I must admit I'm a bit of a pyro so take my words with a grain of salt.... I bought a weed burner attachment from harbor freight last year when we purchased our current house on 6 acres. This tool has been a God send for me. I use it weekly, weeds, fence lines, ditches, starting burn piles, charcoal... It does it all. Use caution in high winds and ask your neighbor if they mind the 'charred' look before you use it on fence lines. (just don't ask me how I know this).

 

[Pilot]

So what's going to stop the fire? Going to till a fireline before you burn? As a forester, I kind of think of this question first!

 

[jcummins]

As wet as it has been here, and the fact most of these weeds are in water, I just don't see the fire spreading as a problem. Now if I was still in Texas, I'd say this is a NO.

Just not sure doing this with a torch will be that much different than using a weed eater. In time and effort. This process stills seems slow.

 

[Chuck52]

I have the same Harbor Freight weed burner. Works great for cleaning up the patio, for example. I also use it to kill the weeds in the fence circles around my fruit and nut trees and the fences around my gardens. You don't have to char the weeds to kill them, just pass the flame/hot air over them and they immediately wilt and will eventually turn brown. I've used it instead of RoundUp because I've killed too many plants with RoundUp. With the burner I can get within a foot or so of the tree trunks without damage to the trees. Can you use it all the time? Of course not. If there is too much easily ignitable junk you'll start a fire. This spring I couldn't start my weeds on fire with a nuclear explosion, but the weed burner sure puts them down.

It is also great for starting burn piles going. I've burned a couple of pretty soggy piles this spring by using a little old oil and just hitting the heart of the pile with the burner to get it going hot enough to dry up the combustibles. I did those piles in hay fields, and I would normally have mowed a circle around the pile before starting. This year the grass/weeds were so wet I was basically standing in puddles, so I just let her rip. Fires didn't spread at all. Later this year I of course would not try that or I'd end up burning a whole field. Different conditions require different approaches.

Chuck

 

[GGB]

The only time I've had good luck with a propane torch to control pond weeds is in the winter when the water is frozen, or in the early spring just as they are starting their growth spurt. My experience has been that most cattails and other edge vegetation has so much water in them during the rest of the year that it takes forever to get them to burn. I had to resort to using the aquatic version of Roundup in the fall to get some control. Now I can control the rest with the weedeater as necessary. It took a couple of years to get things looking like it should, at least in my mind. The previous owners did nothing as best I can tell.

One note: It seems to me that some vegetation is healthier for the ponds than having none. Also, if the pond has the proper slope (not too steep or shallow), you'll have fewer problems with too much vegetation. A good pond contractor may be more expensive, but done correctly, you'll probably save a lot more money and time in the future dealing with weed problems.

The problem I'm now dealing with is a huge amount of underwater moss this year. It's probably due to the long time the pond was frozen over this winter, but I'm still trying to find out for sure. I'll most likely call our County Extension Agent to get some answers.

Good luck with getting your pond the way you'd like it.

GGB

 

[ashdump]

Off topic, but why did you move from Texas to this God-forsaken crap-hole? If I lived in just about any other state, IL would not even make the list of prospective places. Get ready to have your wallet raped with taxes and regulations. Our gun laws really suck too. You will feel the influence of chicago in your life even if you live 400 miles from it.

 

[jcummins]

Off topic, but why did you move from Texas to this God-forsaken crap-hole? If I lived in just about any other state, IL would not even make the list of prospective places. Get ready to have your wallet raped with taxes and regulations. Our gun laws really suck too. You will feel the influence of chicago in your life even if you live 400 miles from it.

Family. Born near here, and grew up here. Otherwise I wouldn't have considered it, not moving to the midwest, but Illinois...YES...is not financially sound, and it's all driven by Chicago .... and now Chicago types drive DC. Lived in Texas 23 years. Winters are pretty good, but they have an extremely long hot summer down there. Summers can get pretty bad in Illinois too, but on balance they are not. From a financial position, this was probably unwise. But the place I have now is really nice compared to what I had in Texas.

BTW this pond is near perfect now. Previous owner really took care of this place, probably better than I'm going to be able to. I will try to keep it as nice as I can.

GGB - Fishing is excellent, and want to keep it that way. I have plenty of grass in the pond, bordering on perhaps to much. And I like you, need to do some research. Perhaps a few grass carp....but I want a fair amount of grass, in the water, it helps the fishing. But I want to walk around the pond and not deal with high weeds, as is the case now. Just last night, caught 5 in 2-4lb range in 15 minutes. Buzzbaits.

A small section of the pond. It's 3-4 times the size this pic shows, you need a bass buddy otherwise you miss half the pond fishing it.

 

[Highbeam]

I own a propane weed burner and the one thing that it really doesn't do well is burn weeds. I use it all the time for starting fires and getting cold things hot but burning weeds is a silly thing to use it for.

I tried it of course and it didn't work. The weed burner has an especially tough time killing anything that is moist and thick like what is likely growing in your pond. Use a weedwacker, it will be quicker and do a better job.

 

[MoKelly]

Off topic, but why did you move from Texas to this God-forsaken crap-hole? If I lived in just about any other state, IL would not even make the list of prospective places. Get ready to have your wallet raped with taxes and regulations. Our gun laws really suck too. You will feel the influence of chicago in your life even if you live 400 miles from it.

Not to mention the fact the Cubs reside in Illinois.:laughing:

MoKelly