How to eliminate cockleburrs

[Valv]

My neighbor pasture has several cockleburrs growing all over, they are bordering my yard and my dogs get them tangled every day.

Will "weed be gone" type of spray take care of them ?

[Dotch]

In a pasture situation, I have a hunch you may be dealing with burdocks not cockleburs but it's possible. From a control standpoint it probably doesn't matter. Both cocklebur and burdock are in the same family, the Asteracae or composite family. Generally they are easily controlled with products containing 2,4-D, MCPP, MCPA, MCPE, dicamba or clopyralid amongst others so yes, your Weed B Gone type product should work. The larger they are the stronger you'll need to mix it. Have used all individually or combinations of them on the burdocks in one pasture with good success. However, since burdocks are biennials, a new crop gets started each fall or late summer from seed in the soil. They overwinter as rosettes, then take off rapidly the next spring growing large, soft leaves reminding one of rhubarb and proceed to bolt, producing a large flower stalk with magenta flowers. They then develop those nasty seed balls that stick in your dog's fur like gum. Cockleburs tend to be located more in tilled fields and fencelines along those fields. The leaves are fairly large, but smaller than burdock, more rounded and they are scratchy almost like sandpaper. They are an annual but rather unique in that the seed pod contains 2 seeds. One that will germinate the following year and the other that is on a timed delay schedule, perpetuating their survival for generations to come when the seed is disturbed. A couple websites with some pictures and descriptions. The first one is a little goofy but the pics are decent. Hope this helps.

http://www.econetwork.net/~wildmansteve/Plants.Folder/Burdock.html

http://vet.purdue.edu/depts/addl/toxic/plant32.htm