permaculture

[Steve Diver <steved@ncat.org>]

I would just use Roundup herbicide if you really
want to get poison ivy under control and you are
super allergic.

You can now find 20% acetic acid (vinegar) and
dilution methods... but this is heavy grade chemistry
not a simple home recipe so use precautions to avoid
skin, lung, and eye injury....  yet, interestingly, it is
considered an alternative to herbicides in organic farming.
It won't work as effective as Roundup but it would
be an "alternative" to the Roundup/chemical
stigma that a lot of urban environmentalists express.
You would have to apply repeated treatments every
time poison ivy re-sprouts for a whole growing season
of knock-down until it dies out.   The concentrated
acetic acid vegetation control method is new, and
I'm not aware of any efficacy data that shows how
well it works for poison ivy...  yet, many people
are hopeful it will be.

If you have a full growing season to allow a fallow
treatment for control, you can get a huge piece of
geotextile mulch and smother it.  I'd guess 2-4 months
will be needed, to starve it from sunlight and deplete root
reserves.   You can get rolls of geotextile mulch in widths
up to 15 ft. wide by 300 ft. long.

There used to be a poison ivy and brush control herbicide
called Ammate-X or AMS.  Chemically it was ammonium
sulfamate, which I suppose was a simple chemical compound
in comparison to common pesticide chemistry.  The biodynamic
pioneer Ehrenfried Pfeiffer recommended its use for poison
ivy control, in the organic classic "Weeds and What They Tell?"
Yet, its registration expired about 10 years ago.

As an fyi:

EXTOXNET:  Ammonium sulfamate
http://ace.ace.orst.edu/info/extoxnet/pips/ammosulf.htm

Steve Diver