Autumn Olive Removal in Indiana: A Plan for Fence Rows

Autumn olive on an Indiana fence row comes out in three steps: a cut that brings it down, a treatment of the stumps or resprouts by a licensed applicator, and a check each season for a few years. The cut alone is not enough: Indiana DNR says mowing or cutting autumn olive can cause vigorous resprouting, and that even repeated cutting is usually ineffective without treating the stumps or resprouts with herbicide. A forestry mulcher brings a fence row or field edge full of it down in one pass and grinds the brush where it stood, which also keeps you clear of Indiana’s ban on transporting it. A treatment by a licensed applicator, arranged by the landowner, is what makes the clearing last.

Below: where it came from, how to spot it, why cutting alone backfires, the plan, the Indiana rules and the cost.

Why Autumn Olive Fills Indiana Fence Rows and Field Edges

Autumn olive is not a plant that arrived by accident. The Indiana DNR fact sheet says that in Indiana, as in the rest of the country, it “was often used for the revegetation of disturbed habitats,” and that it was also sold for roadsides, landscaping and gardens. It is now found “in all counties of Indiana,” in disturbed areas, along roadsides, and in pastures, fields and sparse woodlands.

Those are exactly the places a farm leaves alone. The plow and the combine keep the field open, but the fence row, the field edge, the ditch bank and the thin edge of a woodlot go unmown for years. Autumn olive fills them, and from there it pushes out into the outside rows of the crop.

Three things let it spread so fast:

• Fruit, and birds to carry it. DNR and Purdue Extension both say a plant can produce up to 80 pounds of fruit in a single season, widely dispersed by birds. Indiana’s invasive plant assessment puts seed output at 44,400 to 120,000 seeds a plant.
• Early fruiting. The same Indiana assessment notes it fruits within three to four years and lives 30 to 40 years, so a seedling missed today is a seed source before long.
• Poor soil is no barrier. Its roots fix nitrogen, so it thrives on thin ground where native shrubs struggle, and it casts heavy shade that suppresses plants needing direct sun.

Purdue Extension’s Whitley County educator listed it in 2023 among the invasive species “we’re dealing with here in northeastern Indiana,” calling it “one problematic forest invader.” On the corn and soybean ground around Huntington, Wabash, Bluffton and Columbia City, the fence row is where it shows first.

How to Recognize Autumn Olive

Autumn olive is a medium to large shrub, often with several stems from the base. The easiest tell is the leaf. DNR describes leaves 1 to 3 inches long, alternate, oval to narrow, with smooth edges. The upper surface is dark green to grayish green; the underside is covered in silvery white scales. Turn a branch over in the wind and the whole shrub flashes silver.

Small, light yellow flowers come along the twigs early in the growing season, after the leaves. In late summer and fall the shrub is loaded with small, round, juicy fruit, reddish to pink and dotted with scales. That heavy crop of speckled red berries is the second giveaway, and it is what the birds are after.

It also tells you where to look. DNR notes that autumn olive does not grow well in wet habitats or in dense forest. On a northeast Indiana farm that means the sunny, better-drained edges: fence rows, field margins, the edge of a woodlot rather than its shaded middle. If you are not sure what you have, your county extension office can confirm it from a sample or a photo.

Why Cutting Alone Backfires

Plenty of landowners learn this the expensive way. A row cut back with a saw or a brush cutter one fall comes back the next summer as a thicket of shoots, often denser than the shrubs it replaced.

The roots were never touched. DNR says the plant “resprouts after cutting or burning,” and Purdue Extension warns that “cutting large bushes can result in denser growth.” An untreated stump answers a cut with a cluster of shoots. Seed already in the soil keeps germinating, and the birds bring more from the next farm over.

That is why DNR’s control advice reads the way it does: “Even repeated cutting is usually ineffective without treating stumps and/or resprouts with herbicide.” It adds that multiple treatments may be required. Any quote that promises one visit will finish it is selling half a plan.

The machine still earns its place: it is the fastest way to get a long row down to stumps a treatment can reach.

The Three-Step Plan for a Fence Row

Step one: bring the row down. A tracked forestry mulcher runs the length of the fence row and turns autumn olive, saplings and brush into chips on the spot, steering around the trees you want kept and the posts you want found. There is no pile to burn and no brush to move, and the stumps end up low, where an applicator can reach them quickly.

Step two: treat the stumps or the resprouts. DNR lists three approaches: treating the cut stumps, a foliar treatment of the resprouts during the growing season after cutting, and a basal bark treatment on the lower stems. Purdue names triclopyr and glyphosate for cut stumps, and triclopyr in oil on the lower 18 inches of stems for basal bark work. That part is a job for a licensed pesticide applicator, arranged by the landowner and following the product label; our crew does not apply herbicide. Ask the applicator how to time the treatment to the cutting, and to quote it as its own line so you can see the whole plan.

Step three: walk the rows. Shoots and seedlings can show by the next summer. A look along each row every season for the first few years, with spot treatment on whatever is green, keeps the work you paid for. Where a farm has miles of rows, a light return mulching pass a season or two later may cost less than treating every sprout by hand.

Talk to the farm next door. A fence row usually has an owner on each side, and birds do not respect the wire. Clearing both sides in one visit shares the trip and cuts the seed coming back in.

Indiana Rules That Touch an Autumn Olive Job

Clearing autumn olive is still clearing land, and Indiana adds a rule of its own.

• You may not move it. Indiana’s Terrestrial Plant Rule, in force since 18 April 2019, makes it illegal to sell, gift, barter, exchange, distribute, transport or introduce 44 listed plants, autumn olive and Amur honeysuckle among them. Owning it is not prohibited. Grinding the brush where it grew means nothing is loaded or carried anywhere.
• Burning needs care. IDEM requires its approval before tree waste from clearing is burned where the clearing is for a change in land use, such as a housing development or private road. Mulching leaves nothing to burn.
• Drains and disturbed soil. Many field ditches and tiles in northeast Indiana are county regulated drains with a 75-foot drainage easement, run through the county surveyor and drainage board. In Huntington County that is the County Surveyor’s office at the courthouse. Mulching leaves the ground in place, but a job that disturbs an acre or more of soil brings in IDEM’s construction stormwater permit.

Requirements vary by parcel, scope and jurisdiction, and the governing authority makes the determination.

What Autumn Olive Removal Costs

Clearing autumn olive from a fence row, field edge or woodlot edge, with the trees you are keeping left standing, falls in Cut Brush’s $1,500 to $2,500 per acre band. Fence rows are long and narrow, so they are priced by the acreage the strip adds up to: a 20-foot-wide row is about an acre for every 2,180 feet. An old, dense thicket across a whole field corner, or one mixed with larger trees that also have to come down, moves into forestry mulching at up to $4,000 per acre. Where a job lands in its band depends on how old and dense the growth is. $1,500 is the minimum charge for a project, a floor rather than a fee added on top, because the trip costs the same whether the machine runs for two hours or eight.

The mulching price grinds the shrubs and stumps into mulch on site, with stumps flush with the ground and nothing hauled away. Full stump removal below grade and cut-and-haul for very large trees are discussed and priced in the quote. The applicator’s treatment is priced by the applicator, on its own line, so the budget shows all three steps rather than the first visit alone. Our Huntington forestry mulching cost guide works through fence row examples, and the Indiana land clearing cost guide has the statewide figures. In central Indiana woodlots the same problem usually comes as bush honeysuckle, covered in our bush honeysuckle removal guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I get rid of autumn olive and keep it from coming back?

Three steps: mulch or cut it, have a licensed applicator treat the stumps or resprouts, and walk the row each season for a few years. A cut on its own brings it back, often thicker.

Is pulling autumn olive seedlings enough?

DNR says hand pulling seedlings can be effective. Once a plant is past seedling size, treat it as a cut and treat job.

Is autumn olive illegal in Indiana?

It is one of 44 plants under the Terrestrial Plant Rule, which bars selling, transporting or introducing it. Owning land with it growing is not prohibited.

Can I haul the autumn olive I cut to the dump?

The rule bars transporting it, so check with Indiana DNR before moving any. Mulching it where it grew avoids the question.

Get Your Fence Rows Back

If autumn olive has taken a fence row, a field edge or a woodlot edge around Huntington, Wabash, Bluffton, Columbia City or North Manchester, request a free quote. We’ll contact you to discuss your property, access and the clearing you need, and the written scope says which rows are mulched and what is left for the applicator.

Read more: the bands on the Huntington pricing guide and the local ground on our Huntington land clearing page.