Ortho Brush-B-Gone is a good product. Many have talked about how to avoid a rash. Here is good advice from the FDA - http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/796_ivy.html: Because urushiol can penetrate the skin within minutes, there's no time to waste if you know you've been exposed. "The earlier you cleanse the skin, the greater the chance that you can remove the urushiol before it gets attached to the skin," says Hon-Sum Ko, M.D., an allergist and immunologist with FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. Cleansing may not stop the initial outbreak of the rash if more than 10 minutes has elapsed, but it can help prevent further spread. If you've been exposed to poison ivy, oak or sumac, if possible, stay outdoors until you complete the first two steps: * First, Epstein says, cleanse exposed skin with generous amounts of isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol. (Don't return to the woods or yard the same day. Alcohol removes your skin's protection along with the urushiol and any new contact will cause the urushiol to penetrate twice as fast.) * Second, wash skin with water. (Water temperature does not matter; if you're outside, it's likely only cold water will be available.) * Third, take a regular shower with soap and warm water. Do not use soap before this point because "soap will tend to pick up some of the urushiol from the surface of the skin and move it around," says Epstein. * Clothes, shoes, tools, and anything else that may have been in contact with the urushiol should be wiped off with alcohol and water. Be sure to wear gloves or otherwise cover your hands while doing this and then discard the hand covering.

To the OP - I feel for you! My great-uncle died last Aug, and his DD wants my help managing her blueberry patch (he used to do PYO), it's only about 1/10 acre and 1 year and it's overgrown, I can't imagine your fields! A lot of ground to cover, but I think the only thing you can do is mow (I don't know, tilling might spread it more) and mulch thickly - even cover with plastic. How much space between rows? All you have to do is mow it low enough to keep it knocked down, mulch to keep it from getting sun (plastic or cardboard if you can find enough and make sure to overlap the edges would be goo, to keep it from getting rain too). I have a problem with ragweed here, clear plastic seems to work better to solarize it and once the leaves are dead I can pull up the roots. Smothering it with thick wood chips didn't help - tried that in 2012 during drought and the ragweed thrived b/c it kept moisture in! Once you think you've killed the foliage, you can remove the plastic/cardboard and start pulling up the roots - wear gloves! Then I'd put the plastic (try pro-quality landscape fabric) back on, you can mulch then with woodchips so people have something to walk on, hopefully the fabric will keep the PI down. If you skip the fabric it WILL come right back up through the woodchips and you'll have to keep pulling it. If that's too much to handle on 1/2 acre, then constant mowing (and pulling vines if/when they start to climb the bushes) is the only thing to do. At least you don't expect anyone to be out there barefoot, right?

Some doctors use Cimetidine (Tagamet) as a cure for warts in children. It doesn't work as effectively in adults though. I think Cimetidine is a miracle drug. :) I first learned of it while searching for help for melanomas in my elderly Arabian mare. Most grey horses over 15 years old develop melanoma. Since chemotherapy isn't commonly used in horses, Cimetidine is often used to treat the melanomas. The first round of Cimetidine I gave my horse, it shrunk away all of her melanomas, but they later came back when I stopped giving her the drug. I've given this drug to my horse off and on for the past four years. She just had her 28th birthday and is doing very well. I credit the Cimetidine with helping keep her healthy and alive. If you know anyone suffering from melanoma, colon cancer or gastric cancer, please do a search on Google and learn about this drug and its use as an adjuvant medication in cancer treatment. In one study, colon cancer patients who took 800 mg of Cimetidine for a year along with their cancer treatment, increased their 10 year survival rate from 23% to 85%. Another group increased their survival rate from 33% to 90%. I truly believe the reason this drug is not more commonly used for treating cancer is because it is so cheap, and the drug companies can't make money from it. I pay $12-$14 for a three month supply for my horse. Well, I am long winded when it comes to discussing Cimetidine. I really believe strongly in this drug. Please read the link below to learn more about it, and maybe you can help a friend or family member if they are ever diagnosed with melanoma, colon cancer, or gastric cancer. A google search for Cimetidine and Cancer will pull up lots of information. Here is a link that might be useful: Cimetidine as an adjuvant medication

I just want to give an update on my poison ivy. After due deliberation and much consideration I decided I could carefully target just the poison ivy leaves with an Ortho poison ivy killer without it getting into the ground. I began with a small area first and waited to see what would happen. At first I thought perhaps it had no effect at all, but then a few weeks later I noticed that tiny patch I'd sprayed was brown and dead. So I sprayed the rest. It took a lot of patience and a couple of rounds to get it all and is a slow process just as daninthedirt said, but it looks as though it has finally succeeded! So my next step will be removing that patch of dirt and hopefully removing any roots with it and then bring in some fresh dirt. I figure that's the best way to assure I'm removing as much poison residue in the soil as possible. I'll wait awhile before doing this step to give the poison a chance to complete its job on that root system. I, of course did these courses of poison during long stretches of dry weather so it didn't wash off the leaves. Next time this problem arises I'm going to try the vinegar recipe method for comparison. Thanks for all the help and good advice!