Just got a place with a decent amount of prickly pear cactus. I don't want to kill it all, but I definitely want to thin it out in places. Any ideas?

Mechanical removal works best & fastest. be sure to get base 4" + underground.

Pile it all together let it dry a few months, burn.

Surmount / Picloram + fluroxypyr.
Tordon22k / picloram.
Can take 1 - 3 years to kill.

Grubbing hoe, grain shovel, wheelbarrow and diesel fuel. Growing up one of grandpa's jobs to keep us grandkids out of trouble, so he had us digging up prickly pear, filling a wheelbarrow and piling it up to burn with diesel fuel. You had better not let a weed grow there either.

Dig it up and pile it. I throw it on cedar piles to be burned when conditions are right. One can dig a large area in short time. Can't burn? It will die if kept off soil or water source.

Papalote

Have many acres do you have and how many in pears. We have one area that is 20 acres of pears and it is the best area to hunt imo on the edges... Yes maybe too many in that one area but something works... Keeps them funneled imo. We have 1,100 acres though and that is where I am headed first 3 weeks.... But whacking them with an axe does kill them.

Our land owner sprays tordon 22 about every 4 year or whenever the soil district has funds. Not sure of the details on what help they provide? Stuff works really well for about 3 years.

excellent habitat for rats ect, that attract snakes

Forget digging, dozing, etc.

There’s a new herbicide called MezaVue that is working ridiculously fast. Get a spray tank for a atv/utv and spray the areas that you want to treat.

Another option is prescribed fire, with grazing and/or chemical follow up.

Controlled burn....it doesn't like fire....

The Llano county lease I was on had a few spots. Asked the landowner about spraying them with something but, no go on his part. So, we used what was available - poured molasses on the cactus (same stuff you can pour on old hay to get the cows to eat it). Put out a bit of soured corn. Next weekend we had a nicely plowed piece to toss out whatever we wanted to grow. All courtesy of the hog population.

Kinky!

42 acres in Llano Cty. Prickly pear scattered throughout

Our neighbor in Kimble County got a grant to pay someone to kill it. I can find out where he got the grant through, he said it was easy and they allotted him something like $12k to kill it on 200 acres.

Where can you get MezaVue?

NRCS and the conservation district does it... ask me how I know

Farm supply stores, etc. It IS restricted use, so you have to have a license to buy a gallon-sized jug (same as tordon or surmount)

Spraying is a lot faster and easier than grubbing if you have much to do! I have a lot of prickly pear in a couple of my pastures, and finally finished killing it off in one 20 acre pasture by spraying. Went from having the prickly pear cover a good 30% of the surface area of the pasture (there were large areas you just couldnt walk through), to having maybe one or two small surviving plants per acre. And I think most of those are ones I overlooked in the grass and missed when I was spraying.

Picloram (name brand version is Tordon 22k as previously mentioned), works nicely, but is a restricted use pesticide, and is hard to get if you dont have an applicators license.

Fluroxypyr works a little better and faster than Picloram in my experience, and does NOT require a license. Both are expensive, but Fluroxypyr is even more expensive, unfortunately.

However, you only have to mix either herbicide at 1%, so you can get 100 gallons of spray out of one gallon of herbicide.

I mix either at 1% herbicide, 1% methylated seed oil as a surfactant, some blue dye to see where you have sprayed, and 98% water. It has worked great for me, and I have consistently gotten 99% kill with no regrowth over 20 acres and 5 years. Its a night and day difference in the pasture.

I use a 4 gallon backpack sprayer, and a 15 gallon tank to refill it from in the field, and that has worked nicely. If you can drive an ATV around close to all your prickly pear, a bigger ATV based sprayer would probably be even better.

I tried a bunch of different sprayer nozzles, and I like a flat fan pattern nozzle the best, It seems like I can "paint" the pear leaves quickly and easily with it with minimal overspray and waster.

Here is a link to where I get fluroxypyr.


Fluroxypyr Website

The chemicals work well, I would suggest not to grub on a large scale or tight soils. Easy to miss or leave pads, If you burn first and then treat the chance of success is greater due to being able to see all the pads and chemicals is not wasted on grass on the edge of the pads. As mentioned by nick_adams paint the pads well, we sent a lot of time retreating after patching spray job

Fluroxypyr has been expense and it does seem to clog up the spray nozzle if cleaned upped really good.
MezaVue
Surmount / Picloram + fluroxypyr.
Tordon22k / picloram works well on panhandle species
.

I don't use chemicals, I do mechanical

1. chop off at base, throw handful of swimming pool salt where base is ($5/50 lbs.... cheap)

2. run over with tractor or skidsteer (track) , this breaks it open and dehydrates.
This is my preferred method and is the fastest
Radio on, and joystick away..... for big pile of cactus , I do donut hole and the track
will tear/crush/mush everything

Thanks to you all for your excellent suggestions