Boatright Companies featured in Railway Track & Structures: Fighting the Foliage

Mother nature resistance

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“For any vegetation control company you’re constantly working it seems with, and sometimes against, Mother Nature,” said Shane Boatright, president of Boatright Companies in Birmingham, Ala., which serves many avenues of the railroad industry, including vegetation management. “You have to use different chemical combinations over a time period for anywhere from three to five years, then take a look at what kind of results you’re getting each year because plants tend to become resistant if you’re using the same chemical combinations over and over to control vegetation growing along the railroad.”

 

Boatright utilizes a shortline railroad he owns in St. Marys, Ga., to test various chemical combinations and an array of spray applicator nozzles. This allows his company to constantly try new methods before offering them to clients.

The southeastern railroads are in a constant struggle with the kudzu vine that, when left uncontrolled, will eventually grow over almost any fixed object in its proximity, including other vegetation. It’s a nuisance, notes Boatright, but it can be controlled by the proper methods.

 

“Applying the correct products to keep it back is important because it is a real problem that can create locomotive slippage once it gets up on the track,” explained Boatright.

 

Vegetation Management Specialist at global agrochemical and biotechnology company, Dow AgroSciences, Homer Deckard, like Boatright, has also been battling Mother Nature.

 

“A challenge we face every year is that there seems to be more grasses and broadleaf plants developing resistance to various herbicides. So a priority right now is developing new herbicide mixes and solutions to help deal with ongoing or emerging resistance issues with certain chemistries,” explained Deckard. “Resistance is effectively making several products less effective, so we are being challenged to redefine a lot of our herbicide mixes. Rotating programs from one year to the next with different modes of action helps to avoid further resistance.”

 

Deckard notes that new herbicide active ingredients-such as Dow AgroScience’s aminopyralid-have also helped in alleviating resistance issues. He gives the example that prior to the development of aminopyralid, mare’s tail was developing serious resistance to herbicides. Its introduction helped solve that problem.

Boatright Companies high-rail spray truck

 Growing season

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For Boatright, a 12-month growing season is a challenge he faces working predominately in the Southeast U.S. From March to almost November, they do not see a frost, says Boatright. Vegetation can be difficult to control in the Southeast, and for that, Boatright Companies encourages its customers to do a third application, especially in areas such as Florida, Georgia and Louisiana.

“Down here it’s really tough if we have a mild winter,” said Boatright. “You’re trying to control vegetation for about nine months out of the year. We try to give our customers the best vegetation control results for the best economical dollar. If we have a mild winter in the Southeast, vegetation tends to come back a little stronger.”

“For any vegetation control company you’re constantly working it seems with, and sometimes against, Mother Nature,” said Shane Boatright, president of Boatright Companies in Birmingham, Ala., which serves many avenues of the railroad industry, including vegetation management. “You have to use different chemical combinations over a time period for anywhere from three to five years, then take a look at what kind of results you’re getting each year because plants tend to become resistant if you’re using the same chemical combinations over and over to control vegetation growing along the railroad.”

 

It’s the usual suspects, notes Boatright. In the Southeast they struggle with Johnson grass, Bermuda grass and sometimes clover late in the year.

 

“You’re at a constant struggle in this business with Mother Nature. When you get one thing out it’s going to be replaced by something else,” said Boatright. “Because one thing is competing with another. If you get rid of all the vines, here comes the Johnson grass. You get rid of all the Johnson grass and here come the vines again. It’s a constant struggle in the Southeast.”

 

Many of Boatright Companies’ customers have started adding the third application to their vegetation control repertoire, usually in September. According to Boatright, it decreases the density of vegetation that comes back once the spring returns.

 

“When you get to the latter part of March, you don’t see as much come back because the third application helps out a lot,” said Boatright. “Third-application timing has everything to do with the rain and weather conditions. If our customer realizes that the grass is still growing in their front yard, wherever they live close to the railroad, it’s probably still growing along the railroad. It lets you see it’s a longer growing season.”

Dow AgroSciences high-rail spray truck

In the January 2010 issue of RT&S, a new active ingredient for herbicide mixes, aminocyclopyrachor, was introduced by Harvey Holt, professor emeritus, Department of Forestry & Natural Resources at Purdue University, and was said to be available to customers of DuPont in herbicides by late 2010. DuPont received federal registration for non-crop applications of aminocyclopyrachlor and its various end-use formulations in early September 2010.

 

“Over the past few months, the product has been made available in limited quantities for custom blends with other DuPont herbicides in bareground and selective weeding applications,” said Darin Sloan, land management portfolio manager for DuPont.

 

Current quantities for custom blending are limited, but in early 2011, DuPont expects federal registrations for four non-crop end-use products that will incorporate aminocyclopyrachlor as its main ingredient. These products include: DuPont Plainview™, for bareground weed control; DuPont Perspective™, for selective roadside and invasive weed control and DuPont Streamline™ and DuPont Viewpoint™, for industrial brush control.

 

Aminocyclopyrachlor belongs to a new class of chemistry known as pyrimidine carboxylic acids. It is a new generation of chemicals belonging to the family of herbicides known as synthetic auxins.

 

“This new generation of chemistry has unique properties at both the molecular and whole plant level that translate into more potent herbicidal activity, resulting in increased speed of action and in controlling a much wider spectrum of broadleaf weeds and brush,” explained Sloan. 

 

This wider spectrum of activity includes control of weeds such as resistant kochia, Russian thistle, mare’s tail, prickly lettuce and other tough, resistant weeds such as field bindweed. The brush spectrum includes many standard species in industrial brush programs including hard-to-control species such as mesquite, box elder and hackberry. Sloan notes end-use products based on the aminocyclopyrachlor chemistry are currently being requested by customers of DuPont to address the gaps in their current programs and manage their hard-to-control species.

 

 

Getting off-track

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One challenge in particular for vegetation management crews is fighting for track time in order to get the job done. The plan of attack? Simply getting off-track.

 

“We are finding it hard to get track time to keep unwanted vegetation off the railroads,” said Vinnie Vaccarello, co-president of All Railroad Services Corp., a full-service railroad pole line removal and disposal, as well as a vegetation management company. “We have had to come up with off-track equipment, both mechanical cutting and spraying, to combat the ever-growing vegetation problems.” It has always been a problem, he noted, but it’s “getting harder.”

 

In order to accommodate tight track timeframes, Badger Equipment Co. utilizes its 1085R Cruz Air, which is manufactured as a direct replacement, multi-purpose machine that has a mower attachment(s), tie grapple, digging buckets and many other attachments for maintenance-of-way projects.

 

“With its quick-tach levers, the attachments are switched out in a matter of minutes so the team can mow, then dig, then move railroad ties and then even attach a magnet for scrap metal pickup,” said Paul Marxen, sales manager. “Being a high-rail-equipped wheeled excavator, the machine can travel on the tracks and mow, or it can go off the sidings and perform other duties.”

 

Marxen points out that the 1085R Cruz Air can also travel down side roads at a speedy 29 mph to get to other jobsites without using a lowboy truck and trailer, saving customers time and money.

 

The Badger 1085R Cruz Air

 

The Badger 1085R Cruz Air is manufactured as a direct replacement, multi-purpose machine. It has a variety of boom and stick combinations and its rubber tires allow for easy transport to job sites on its own power.

 

This spring, Badger Equipment expects to debut a two-axle truck-mounted excavator that can handle mowers, as well as its digging buckets while being mounted on high-rail gear, in addition to its highway travel ability.

 

RCE BC-120C On-Track Brush Cutter

 

Kershaw, a Progress Rail Services company, offers rubber-tired or rail-bound brush cutters and rubber-tired or tracked tree trimmers. Most rubber-tired machines are available with hi-rail attachments.

 

Kershaw’s SkyTrim is a rough-terrain, rubber-tired vehicle with telescoping boom and saw-type cutter head designed to trim trees. The SkyTrim is equipped with two-speed heavy-duty power-shift transmission for shift-on-the-go capability and reliability. Hydrostatic four-wheel drive provides rough terrain negotiability. The boom extends to 75 feet to trim the tallest trees.

 

ARS Corp. offers combination services to its clients in order to reduce cost and time.

 

“Our customers like combining weed spray with mechanical brush cutting,” said Vaccarello. “If you can perform both services simultaneously you can pass on the cost savings to the customer.”

 

An off-track small ASV with a Fecon head that has the capability to spray herbicide is just one multi-use, multi-terrain vehicle ARS Corp. uses. Additionally, they operate big hydro-ax rubber-tired machines outfitted with herbicide application capabilities and hi-rail, rubber-tired excavators with cutter heads that can cut both on-and off-track to maximize productivity when there is no track time available.

 

Using this equipment makes the job “safer, more productive and cost effective,” said Vaccarello.