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Illinois road ditches are clean of weeds

5

55 50 Ron

Well-known Member
The nice ditches along farm fields in Illinois impresses me. They are so clean of weeds and have nicely mowed grass. It made me wonder if that is a state regulation (mandatory?) to control weeds or is it a pride shared by Illinois farmers? It makes for a great clean countryside. Thanks to those Illinois farmers.
 
most of the farmers maintain the road ditches along their fields. i finish mow all my road ditches. it stops the weed seeds from spreading into the fields, keeps the gopher population down (hawks take care of that) and townies dont their garbage on a well mowed roadside.
 
oops
cvphoto94887.jpg
 
I'd hate to live in a place like that is so hostile to wildlife with no habitat.A lot more to living in the country than soybeans,corn and crew cut grass as far as I'm concerned.
 
I bet you could go in any state and find the roads really nice in some areas and awful in others. It may be since Illinois grows more crops than a lot of places weeds are controlled better.
 
Some states prohibit mowing roadsides before a certain date to provide wildlife habitat. Iowa is sometime in July (15th?), could Illinois have been slightly before your trip?
 


And some places plant right up to the pavement. I was driving a backroad in PA one time and suddenly a set of combine snouts came out through the corn which was within two feet of the pavement.
 
Illinois mows fence to fence most of the summer,in Missouri they make a pass down the side of the road and call it good.
 
In my county a person would get a letter from code enforcemen if our grass was as tall as grass along any road. Go figure.
 
Not sure what part of the state you saw but what transpires in my area is one trip along the side of the road in Spring and Summer and a total area mowing in the fall. With this schedule, they are able to spread seed from Johnson grass and other pest weeds up and down the road sides to the point that some road sides are solid weeds and no grass. If one wants a clean road side he must spray and mow it himself. It's not a money issue, it's a bad management issue.
 
Few years back I had a need to research this topic. Per Ill-noise state law, farm ditches are mowed no less than twice per year. I don't know(remember?) when or why. I maintain my ditch, but the township would mow it if I didn't.

HTH,
Don
 
Keep good sightlines along roadsides to prevent collisions with deer, bear, wolves, turkeys, etc. by cutting roadsides all the way back to the property line. Roadsides are no place to encourage wildlife by providing them with habitat. Control the spread of noxious weeds by timely roadside cutting. Keep brush and eventually trees from growing up into powerlines by roadside cutting. Prevent snow from drifting and piling up on roadway by roadside cutting. And, it makes the whole neighborhood look better.
 
I saw roadsides of Northern Illinois in the flat farming countryside north of I 80 and west of I 39.
 


Here in NH, many people living on the town roads have this idea that they own up to the edge of the pavement so they will fill the ditch in with loam and plant their lawn right up to it. If they are on a hill the water can't run off the pavement so it cuts in next to it and then in a heavy rain the water undercuts the pavement until a passing truck breaks the unsupported pavement off, which makes space for more lawn...............
 
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