TAHLEQUAH —
Spring flowers are in full bloom, providing lots of color and fragrance, but some of the accompanying greenery has potentially dangerous effects.
Toxicodendron radicans, or poison ivy, grows throughout most of North America, and is flourishing in Cherokee County right now.
“Things are growing real well this year: weeds, insects, gardens - everything, so I’m sure the poison ivy is just like the rest of it,” said Cherokee County OSU Extension Agriculture Educator Roger Williams. “I think everything is growing as well as it can. It’s kind of making up for last year. Most everything is.”
Poison ivy – also referred to as three-leafed ivy, poison creeper, climbing sumac and poison oak – is often found growing in wooded areas, especially along edge areas, exposed rocky areas, and open fields. The poisonous plant can grow as a shrub up to almost 4 feet tall, as groundcover up to 10 inches high, or as a climbing vine on various sources of support.
“The biggest thing is where homeowners have a yard, and they have some growing and it’s up a tree,” said Williams. “You really have to determine if you really want to keep that tree. In that situation, the best thing to do is spray the leaves of it with Roundup or glyphosate or Eraser or any number of the generics that are out there.”
Killing poison ivy, in fact, requires a specific environmental condition to produce lasting effects. The plant needs to be in a healthy-growing state to provide an open window for the eradication process to take hold.
“It has to not be stressed enough to get a real good root kill on it,” said Williams. “So, growing as good as the poison ivy is now, you should be able to get a good root kill on it. With that being said, it’s probably going to take three sprayings to actually get it killed. After the leaves die back and everything, you need to trim the stuff that’s growing up the tree and then when it comes back, let it get to growing again and spray it again. Then, usually, the third time, there’ll be a little come back up that you’ll need to get. Sometimes, people really complain about Roundup and say it doesn’t do a good job, but if plants are stressed, you won’t get a good kill.”
Stressed conditions that can affect the plant’s removal are linked to temperature and moisture. Eradication is not likely if it’s too cold or too dry.
“Now if you’re just trying to kill everything out and not just trying to get the poison ivy, you can go with a chemical called Remedy,” Williams said. “The active ingredient in it is triclopyr. It will kill trees, poison ivy, and shrubs - everything but grass, kind of. You’ve really got to be careful using that, if you’re a homeowner, make sure you don’t do something that you don’t want to do.”
According to Dow AgroSciences, Remedy is a herbicide that was developed for the specific use in range and pasture landscape environments. Remedy is described as the most economical way to get rid of brush encroachment while improving grass productivity. Williams said homeowners need to be aware of the lawn effects from the use of Roundup, as well.
“Glyphosate in Roundup and Eraser is going to affect the grass,” he said. “You have to keep in mind to spray the tree and know that any overspray that gets on the grass is going to kill it.”
The effects poison ivy have on the human body can be quite damaging, as well. The allergic reaction caused by contact with poison ivy is known as urushiol-induced dermatitis, which can progress to an anaphylaxis state in extreme cases. It is the pentadecylcatechols of the oleoresin found in the sap, or urushiol, of the plant that causes the allergic reaction.
The urushiol binds to the skin on contact and causes severe itching that develops into reddish-colored inflammation or non-colored bumps before blistering. Thus, removal of the plant by hand or even burning the plant with other brush is not recommended, said Williams.
“It can get on gloves and clothing and dog hair - everything if you touch without wearing any protection,” he said. “[Poison ivy] is one of the biggest hazards for people who are fighting wildfires in some forests. They don’t check for poison ivy before they start fighting the fire. It does some damage to the lungs that is irreparable. It’s a big problem. [Burning it is not recommended] and definitely do not breath the smoke because those particles can travel.”
When identifying a plant as poisonous, people need to remember one of the mnemonic rhymes like “leaves of three let it be” or “hairy vine, no friend of mine.”
“A lot of people have some how gotten the idea that three leaves is poison ivy and five leaves is poison oak or something like that,” said Williams. “That’s not true. Everything that’s poisonous has three leaves. If it’s got three leaves, it doesn’t matter what it is; it needs to be considered poisonous.”
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