Miller, James H.; Manning, Steven T.; Enloe, Stephen F. 2010. A management guide for invasive plants in southern forests. Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS–131. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Southern Research Station. 120 p.
Russian olive (Elaeagnus angustifolia L.) is a small thorny deciduous tree to 35 feet (10 m) tall that has microscopic silvery scales covering leaves, twigs, and fruits. Leaves are long and narrow with entire margins. Bark is fissured and reddish brown. Olivelike fruit are yellow (seldom red), appear in late summer to fall, and are spread by birds and mammals. Found as rare plants in city forests and emanating to nearby disturbed areas. Rare at present in the South while a widespread invasive tree elsewhere in the United States. Most often confused with the widely invasive autumn olive (E. umbellata Thunb.) that has silvery scaled leaves and twigs, red fruit that are only slightly scaly, and smooth bark.
Management strategies
- Do not plant. Remove prior plantings, and control sprouts and seedlings. Bag and dispose of fruit in a dumpster or burn.
- Treat when new plants are young to prevent seed formation.
- Cut and bulldoze when fruit are not present.
- Manually pull new seedlings and tree wrench saplings when soil is moist, ensuring removal of all roots.
- Burning treatments are suspected of having minimal topkill effect due to scant litter.
Recommended control procedures
Trees. Make stem injections using Arsenal AC* or Garlon 3A in dilutions and cut-spacings specified on the herbicide label (anytime except March and April). For felled trees, apply the herbicides to stump tops immediately after cutting. ORTHO Brush-B-Gon, Enforcer Brush Killer, and Vine-X are effective undiluted for treating cut-stumps and available in retail garden stores (safe to surrounding plants).
Saplings. When safety to surrounding vegetation is desired, apply a basal spray to young bark using either Garlon 4 as a 20-percent solution (5 pints per 3-gallon mix) in a labeled basal oil product, vegetable oil or mineral oil with a penetrant, or fuel oil or diesel fuel (where permitted); or undiluted Pathfinder II. Or when safety to surrounding vegetation is not a concern, apply Stalker* as a 6- to 9-percent solution (1.5 to 2 pints per 3-gallon mix) in a labeled basal oil product, vegetable oil, kerosene, or diesel fuel (where permitted).
Seedlings and saplings. Thoroughly wet all leaves with one of the following herbicides in water with a surfactant (July to October): Arsenal AC* as a 0.75-percent solution in water (3 ounces per 3-gallon mix) or Arsenal PowerLine* as a 1.5-percent solution (6 ounces per 3-gallon mix). Or when safety to surrounding vegetation is desired, use a glyphosate herbicide, Garlon 3A, or Garlon 4 as a 2-percent solution in water (8 ounces per 3-gallon mix). Use any of these three mixtures for directed spray treatments that have limited or no soil activity.
* Nontarget plants may be killed or injured by root uptake.
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