Effect of Frequency and Method of Defoliation and Plant Size on the Survival of Multiflora Rose

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Abstract
Multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora Thunb.), widely promoted in the 1930's and 1940's for soil stabilization in the USA, has become a serious weed in hill land pastures. Appropriate grazing management can provide biological control of undesirable plants, however, little information is available on the response of multiflora rose to defoliation. This experiment was conducted to examine the effect of defoliating large and small plants at 2 and 4 week intervals on regrowth and survival. After initial cutting to 7.5 cm plants were defoliated either by clipping regrowth at 7.5 cm or stripping off all regrowth. Stripping killed most plants before the end of the second year irrespective of size or frequency of defoliation. Plants that survived longest were clipped at 2 week intervals. Data from this experiment suggest that multiflora rose regrowth would be controlled effectively by frequent heavy grazing for the first two years followed by less frequent heavy grazing.

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