Thorny Honey Locust... tractor ..long

Any of you encountered Thorny Honey Locust trees? The farm I grew up on in NE Kansas has quite a good number. I would say one in 50 trees in the woods along the creek ..or as this German heritage boy was taught ..crick.. that winds through the 80 acres north to south. I will attach some photos. Should have taken a picture of a normal section of a branch, but they all have spines on them anywhere from 3 to 12 inches apart, with a length from a 1/4 in. long to 3 in. plus. When the trees are young they are just smooth, once they mature a little probably 5 years or more they form a normal rough bark and start growing spine clusters along the main trunk. The one in the photo is probably 6 in. diameter at the location of the photo. The other photo is of an unusually long spine cluster, it is laying on a normal letter size paper for size. If I am looking at the right map, it looks like they occupy a zone from Eastern Nebraska straight South into Texas and East, save a 400 mile wide strip back from the Atlantic coast. Then there is also what we call ..hedge.. trees there as well probably, approximately 1 in every 25 trees; others may know these as Osage Orange or Hedge Apple. Their thorns usually do not grow much more than an inch in length with the majority of them being about a half inch long. However, they are placed much closer together along the branches say every 1 and a half inches and any off shoot branch of an 1/8 in. diameter or so bares the weaponry. I put a link to Wikipedia but if you search ..Osage Orange Thorns.. you will get a better idea. I did not really care to give any publicity to the website that had the best pictures. I should also say the East side of the 80 still has a continuous hedge row panted way back when for property division as well as a windbreak, this was true of many farms in that part of Kansas as well as several other states. To keep it tractor related I am also picturing my M with the Horndraulic trip loader.. this was during a different tree clean up several years ago before I installed the hood. It helped me this weekend clean up a few of the described trees and some others that had made there way onto the edges of fields or other areas of moms farm. One 18 in diameter trunk hedge had fallen across the creek. It had been there a while and had quite a bit of other deadwood blocked up so I had something to stand on to saw it up, and only about fell in the water once when some of the deadwood gave way. It was probably no more than 2 foot deep, but I did not really care to check. Quite a bit of the hedge was dead so that was a plus, still quite a bit of a challenge. I should have taken some pictures, but just never get in that mindset during the heat of battle, sorry.

Forgot the ..Hedge.. Osage Orange link. Should also say for those who dont know a hedge post 4 inches in diameter will easily last 50 years to hold up fencing.
Hedge tree

Years ago when I was cutting timber to help with making a living, I had a big honey locust tree (close to 3' in dia. that I asked the girl at the mill if they would take. She said if I had the guts to cut it they would take it. I took the dozer and cleared away the old thorns laying on the ground and cut it. She showed me the lumber after it was sawed. It makes beautiful flooring. They paid top dollar for it too.

We have regular locust here in Maryland. Thorns grow straight out of the bark, which is much rougher than the tree pictured. Can go straight through a tire. One with about a 30" trunk fell across my neighbor's yard in a storm years ago. Because it was a split trunk and my side was still standing, I didn't see it until my neighbor pointed out the huge tree lying across his back yard. Took about a week to cut it all up. Makes nice firewood, crackles and pops.

Gerrit

We have some locust but have lots more wild bradford pears. Both are full of thorns that will get a tire whether it is on a tractor, lawn mower, car, or trailer. They are both mean trees.

None of that around here but plenty of black locust. Great for fenceposts. I will last over 50-60 years in the ground but I don't think I ever cut one down that didn't have ant tunnels and some rot in the center. I love the aroma when they blossom in late May.

I have the thorny locust trees scattered around in my hilly pasture. I'm experimenting - I tried cutting a groove about 2" deep into the trunk as close to the ground as I could cut. Then I sprayed roundup undiluted into the cut. We'll see how that works at killing them.

I have sawed them down, chest high saw cut, in August and it seems to kill them reliably. I don't like doing it - if something went wrong it would be a horrible death.

Then there's the cleanup mess no matter what you do.

Got plenty around here.
Worst tree in the world for ruining tractor tires.

Got lots of black locusts also which is one of my favorite trees with many, many uses.

Only good thing about honey locust is the beans which make good homemade beer with persimmons.
Richard in NW SC

When you cut a locust tree, the roots will send up shoots to grow more trees. In a patch they can be from one tree.

An arborist told me the railroad used to give out locust shoots for people to plant. They liked to buy locust logs for railroad ties because of rot resistance.

A friend of mine lived in Manhattan. They had a cat who would regularly make a break and once outside make for the nearest tree.
They moved to the country. Cat did his routine and never climbed another tree.

That is nasty. It seems that Nature has provided a "cactus" solution in every climate. From Buffalo Berry and Buck Brush, to Hawthorn, Multiflora Rose, and many many other species, we are in a thorny situation. Jim

I have just done something similar. I tried two methods.

1. I drilled and used a dropper to squirt about 10 mm of roundup into the hole.

2. I used the hack and spray method with undiluted roundup.

Hopefully they both work.

I live 120 miles East of KC in the flint hills.
Plenty of thorny locust and hedge in these parts.
Locust make good firewood but I refuse to mess with the thorny ones.
The best plan for the is the front end of a D-9 CAT.. dig a hole and bury it.
There are non thorny trees around and those I will make into firewood in a heartbeat.
Hedge make both great fence posts and firewood but you have to watch how much you put in the stove as it does get HOT and it really snap crackles and pops.
Not made for an inside fireplace even with a tight screen IMO.
I have put in a lot of pasture fence using hedge but come burning season you need to watch that they do not burn off.
If the landowner wants hedge I will put it in but some want Steel.
4"pipe set in concrete with welded braces will last a long time.