People have been digging up ragwort for as long as it's been a problem in their fields. It was generally a fairly successful method of getting rid of it, root an' all; but things are changing. There are generally two problems with digging up ragwort. Firstly, remember when you read earlier on this site about how the seeds can lie dormant in the soil until the conditions are right for germination? Well, when you dig up that ragwort, you could well be disturbing some of those seeds and bringing them up to the surface where they will warm themselves in the sun and start to sprout.
Secondly the ragwort root has made some alterations to the way it's able to keep a strong foothold. Some plants have long had the ability to regenerate themselves from root cuttings. The problem in this case is that it's not some delightful specimen for a cottage garden, but it's a plant that has the potential to kill. We have removed several hundred Ragwort roots, in the tests we have done to study this. We then marked all the holes with little flags. In 7 out of 10 holes, that remained from having the roots dug out using a ragwort fork had numerous seedlings re-grow. These ranged in number from between 4 and 43. Upto 43 new plants as a result of removing one plant? Not a very good solution to a serious problem. In order to stand any chance of removing every part of the root to eliminate regeneration, a large hole would need to be dug. This hole will then need filling in of course.
Please be advised that this is not an exercise in running down a very useful device that does what it's designed to do-and that is; remove a ragwort plant. It does that job very well. The problem is that the ragwort now seems to be more able to regenerate itself from the smallest of root fragment that is left behind. The result is that digging up the plant is not a reliably successful method of getting rid of it.
The benefits of removing Ragwort by digging is that it does remove the plant immediately. The downside is that you just can't be sure that it won't return, oh yes, and it's a lot of hard work!
If you have any Ragwort Information that you think would be useful to other people with a Ragwort Problem, plase send it in so we can include it on the website.
This gallery image is a little fuzzy. Click on it and you will see the crystal clear version. You can see quite clearly the squared off ends of the roots, and that means the other ends are still in the ground. And what happens next folks? That's right, they start to grow again and instead of one plant you could have 20 or more!
