anyone had to remove large amounts of lilly pads

I have 4 duck lakes that the dam lilly pads have taken over almost completely, need some way to kill/cut/eradicate them.

one lake has almost 6-7 acres of them

My Dad used Roundup to kill the cattails in his pool . Not sure how safe that is but it definitely worked .

a product called rodeo (same stuff pretty much) with a surfactant is actually what the fed people recommended and approved.


problem is spraying approx. 10-15 acres worth in water.

was hoping someone knew some trick. gonna build a drag for the tractor for now and just open some water up for the ducks/hunters.

We had 4 ponds with lilly pads sticking 4'out of the water. they were 1-5 acres. We bought a product from Pond Boss and spread it as best we could. It cleaned house. It's a granule and we used big plastic cups to sling it out in the water. It's a chore and if you don't have shoulder problems now you might after. It doesn't hurt the fish or the moss. Now the hard part $200 a bag. I think we used 4 bags. It was well worth it. We are off that place now but for three years it was still working. Dragging a pond won't work.

Dragging is temporary at best. Like weedeating weeds - the'll just grow right back unless you really clear it out.

looking like grass carp (not one of my favorite fish) and some chemical pellets I found are the most effective for long term.

then there is this.

^^^ this .

Water lilies and lotus (leaves above the water) grow from rhizomes like Iris does . Cutting back the leaves will just stimulate the root to spread .

Guy in Nocona does aerial spraying with a helicopter. My dad has used him to spray the dam out at the lake and had good results. I imagine he's got something for that or could point you in the right direction.
http://www.sandbhelicoptertours.com/our-services-and-prices.html

heres a good way to spread product, they used a similar product on the ponds when I worked at a golf course.

http://www.extremeblowerproducts.com/

A friend of mine worked for a pond management company and said they use 2,4-d to control them and it's safe to use on water. You have to be careful if spraying from a boat to not create waves that will wash it off. Last resort they use their amphibious tractor to remove the stuff. They are really cool but expensive.

Edit: I'm not sure the mixture ratio but could ask him if you are interested.