Thistle. The name itself brings up all kinds of derogatory images in my head. Thistles are bad. At least that is the knee jerk reaction for landowners who spend hours and a lot of money trying to eradicate the darn things.

I used to spend days making my way through the pastures here in Custer County digging up musk thistle. I would have to pull the heads off and the spines were tough enough that at times they would poke through my leather gloves. I had to then stuff the heads into a sack to be burned later. You can cut down the plant but once the head has formed there are enough residual nutrients to complete the development of some of the seeds. I managed a large piece of property in Dawson County for the Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation Distract that had so many musk thistles that chopping them with a shovel was impractical. The only solution was annual aerial application of herbicide.

But musk thistle isn’t the only thistle in Nebraska.

According to the Nebraska Department of Agriculture there are 10 different species of thistle in Nebraska.

Five of the species are natives and they don’t cause problems. The other five, including musk thistle, have been introduced and they do cause problems.

The negative effects of thistle were first recognized in 1873 when Canada thistle was placed on the Noxious Weed List. If a plant is on the List it is the landowner’s legal responsibility to try and control the infestation. If you don’t the County Weed Authority can come onto your property and spray the weeds with herbicide and send you the bill.

Other thistles on the List besides musk thistle and Canada thistle are the plumeless thistle, bull thistle, and Scotch thistle. Canada thistle was brought to Canada from Europe to serve as a feed option for pigs. Musk thistle and Scotch thistle, on the other hand, were deliberately introduced as ornamental garden plants.

The problem with the non-native thistles is that they are so aggressive they will outcompete native plants. Also, livestock don’t like to eat them! Once the seed heads mature the thousands of seeds can lie dormant in the soil. If you do a quick Internet search you will see that musk thistle seeds can remain viable in the soil for anywhere from 12 to 21 years.

Not everything about thistles are bad. They are food for all kinds of butterflies and other pollinators and the seeds feed any number of birds and small mammals all winter long. However, the bad outweighs the good, and besides, the law says you must try and get rid of them.

The best method for getting rid of them is to not bring them here in the first place. It’s a lesson we just can’t seem to learn. We continue to bring in exotic plants and animals only to have them escape into the “wild”. Examples are pythons in Florida and zebra mussels here in Nebraska. I’m not sure why we keep trying to improve on Mother Nature. How did that commercial go…”It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature!”