Joe Bikerider

See here:

https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/community/boise/article275323271.html

enjoy.

Barry2 

I had no idea goatheads are not native.

I do know they tried to get ahold of my driveway.
it didn’t workout well for them.

Barry

TiHabanero

Stemming from the article it seems that raising property values will help with the task of eliminating the weed. It must somehow change the composition of the soil making it unable to support the plant.

LesterOfPuppets

Around here it mostly works that way because more rich folk pay for landscape maintenance crews.

One notable exception is some rather expensive homes on 5 acre lots. Their horses will keep most of the weeds down but they often have goatheads along the fence line.

HelpSingularity 

After having spent some time in Bakersfield, California and Denver, Colorado I can now spot those low-lying, yellow flowered demon plants from hell from 20 meters away.
I wish them luck in their efforts to rid their state of this scourge.
Once they have it figured out hopefully we can expand the eradication program to the rest of the western states.
Godspeed!

(If you can't tell I hate those things)

indyfabz

Spent a night in Boise way back in 2002. That year Cycle Oregon started in Nyssa, OR, on the border with ID, so they encouraged people to fly into Boise rather than take the long bus ride from Portland to the start. Saw lots of sugar beet fields during the bus ride to Nyssa.

VegasTriker

The goathead is one tough plant. I doubt you can do anything to the soil that would make it hostile to goatheads. Where I live in the Mojave desert they grow along the edges of the roadways in the crappiest soil imaginable. It takes just enough runoff from the road for them to thrive. They will grow anywhere. On a trip to Zion National Park with my trike, I discovered a patch at the bike parking rack for the main lodge. I reported it to the ranger as mature goatheads at the bike rack could get nasty for riders who aren't aware of them. They grow along portions of the bike path leading from the entrance to the end of the road at the narrows. If you ever go to Zion and use the paths, be alert.

mschwett 

those things look vicious. nature's own road spikes/caltrops. interesting how they seem "designed" to land with the spike up...

BlazingPedals

It ain't the horses, it's probably the owners who spray. Horses eat the grass and leave the weeds to grow.

RCMoeur 

Grrr. Goatheads. One of the few evil pointy things that can defeat a SpinSkin (some of the others being steel wire or a self-tapping screw).

Year before last, an aid station at El Tour de Tucson was set up at a location where one of the exits had goatheads mixed into the loose dirt. Kept Bike Patrol a bit too busy at that spot. This past year the station was in a different location, so not an issue.

Once in a while, they'll pop up on our property. If there was just a way I could torture them and leave their carcasses posted as a warning to others. (Am I being too harsh?)

Fredo76

I weeded our street in Aug-Sept of 2020. Maybe 15 bags with thousands in each bag went to the landfill. I was pretty thorough, and some neighbors actually seem to be helping keep them back - no big mats of them since.

LesterOfPuppets

I haven't spotted any goatheads in my yard yet this season, I've pulled a couple of globe chamomile weeds though.

cyccommute 

It’s not the composition but the competition. Tribulus terrestris is a pioneer plant that thrives in disturbed soils. Competition from other plants causes them to die back. However, the seeds can lie dormant for up to 50 years waiting for the proper conditions…i.e. other plant removal…to sprout again. Often, here in Colorado, new bike paths will be infested with them for a number of years before enough other plant cover grows to force them out. Even then, goatheads tend to grow in the soil trapped in expansion joints on bike paths and sidewalks as well as along road ways were sand is often used in the winter for traction purpose.

Wealthier areas tend to have more intense landscaping than poorer places which precludes infiltration of goatheads.

cyccommute 

This guy should be beatified.

50PlusCycling

I grew up in New Mexico, and because of goat heads, I became very good at patching tubes. One tube could have as many as a dozen patches, As a kid, I, like the other kids in the neighborhood, went out a lot barefoot, and it was a rare summer day when I didn’t pull out a least a couple goat head stickers from my feet. Bad as goat heads are, their thorns are nothing compared those of the mesquite, which easily penetrate through shoes and even the sidewalls of car tires.

LesterOfPuppets

Mesquite, bougainvillea, orange tree thorns, all fun stuff. There's always one in your flipflops/slides that only hits your foot every 20 steps or so, gotta pull 'em out with some needle nose pliers to get happy feet again

terrymorse 

Can confirm -- goatheads don't do well at all against other plants.

Stanford University used to have a huge problem with goathead punctures along the paved bikeways. Some research identified the problem: grounds maintenance were spraying to keep plants (mostly grasses) away from the path edges. With this ground free of competitors, goathead plants thrived. Once maintenance stopped spraying and switched to trimming the plants, the goathead problem went away.

79pmooney

Probably so some animal can step on it and transport it to new territory. The seeds that land spike down are failures in the goathead dream of world dominance. They'll never do more than just hand at their local goathead ghetto.

Broctoon

Goat heads and the weeds that produce them (we call them puncture vines, and they are the bane of my existence) are very nasty, tough, and persistent. They can grow with very little water. In fact, I've often witnessed them thriving in hard, dry soil, in spite of the above linked article's claim that they do best in disturbed, sandy soil. They can pop up anywhere, even in pavement cracks. Left alone, they will propagate to cover large areas. One large plant can produce hundreds of thorns. I've seen them reach eight or ten feet in diameter. It can take up to eight years to completely eradicate them from a plot of land, even with focused, deliberate efforts each season. The best way to discourage them from growing, aside from manually removing the plants one by one, is to keep healthy grass growing, which involves plenty of watering and fertilizing. While the puncture vines can handle harsh environments, they grow low to the ground and won't do well when competing for sunlight.

I wish the Boise folks well in this endeavor, and feel it would be like a dream come true if we could eliminate goat heads everywhere.

Erzulis Boat

My memory may be faulty as to the exact count, but I can recall one incident of 30+ punctures within a few wheel revolutions of passing through a sand wash on a bike path.

I was commuting, so this really ruined my journey home.

79pmooney

Some kid missed an opportunity. Perfect place to set up a "orange seal stand" like the ubiquitous lemonade stands on a hot summer day. (A "Stan stand"?) $10 for a 2 oz bottle. Valve wrench to borrow. $15 for a tube with a removable valve should you not have one. Don't like the prices? Well, you can just walk away. (You won't be riding.)

Broctoon

Yes, that is the thorn's purpose in this plant's design, unlike the quills of a cactus, which are meant to protect the plant from creatures that might destroy it.

From a botanical standpoint, these thorns are a type of fruit, as are the fuzzy parachutes of dandelion or milkweed seeds and the leaflike structures that cause some tree seeds to spin like a helicopter rotor when falling. Of course, some fruits are carbohydrate-rich and often colorful or fragrant, encouraging animals to eat them and thereby transport seeds to new locations. Many different strategies to achieve the same objective, and the one used by puncture vines just happens to be problematic for us.

LesterOfPuppets

Well there are cholla which like to hitch a ride

Fredo76

Carry a comb. ^^^

LesterOfPuppets

My second least favorite cholla event (just behind falling into one) is when they stick in your front tyre, go round for about half a rotation then explode upon encountering your fork.