It’s spring! Some would say it’s construction season, but if you have pastures, you know it’s thistle season. Our featured weed is a type of thistle – bull thistle.
Bull thistle is a biennial plant. I mention that because the life cycle is important to understand in order to do the best job managing the weed. Bull thistle starts from seed, and in the first year it grows a rosette. This is the ideal time to get it under control. It stays low to the ground and has wide-enough leaves to land a sufficient amount of herbicide on them. Otherwise, if you just want to dig the plant up, that can be done, as well. In year two, the bolt stage, bull thistle can be 5 to 7 feet tall and put on several seed heads that spread seeds for the next generation, and it starts all over again.