Prickly pear and cedars....what to do?

What are you guys doing with them? Getting rid of them? Do they have any kind of value to deer or pretty much worthless?

Not enough value to justify keeping them.

Cut the cedar below the bottom limbs (preferably ground level) and spray the cactus.

Surmount works very well on prickly pear. Don't use it inside or near the drip line of an oak tree, it will kill the tree.

How well will burning pear work? With the rains, we've got lots of fuel and could cook that stuff.

Good info thanks fellas!

I've seen a lot of grass fires and the cactus are not affected. They are hard to destroy

Within reason, they provide cover and shelter, also a backup food source in lean times. I'd say it would depend on the coverage.

If you have access to a tractor with a front end loader (FEL) cedars are easy to push over since they have a shallow root system, they there are no stumps to wait 20 years to rot away.

If you can push/pull up the PP and place it in piles, then in a year when it is thoroughly dried out, burn it, that way you don't have a ton of dried leaves and stickers everywhere. Just note, any PP leaf pieces touching the ground will take root. I was on a lease outside Sterling and pile and burn is how they do it there as well and bother, they have the prickly pear!

Cut the cedar to leave no green leaves showing, wont work on redberry it will come back, it needs to removed at the roots. Pear is controlled really well with a product called Vista, a good surfactant like Sidekick, plus a good shot of dawn. Sprayed in the summer the hotter the better. Spray in June and yellow and drooping by August and dead by end of winter. Pear will resprout and you can either spray again or I like to run a fire thru it say May or June if you have enough fine fuel to get it nice and hot. All depends on winter rain.