It’s been a very different growing season and with that has come a very different in-crop weed profile.
Most of my travels are in West Central and Southwest Saskatchewan, and in those regions it’s been a great year for wild mustard. It’s a weed that’s easily controlled in cereal crops and within canola, but it’s a different story within lentil crops. There’s a smattering of wild mustard in nearly all the regular lentil crops and some crops are absolutely polluted. You have to look closely to be sure it’s actually a lentil crop. In Clearfield lentils, much better wild mustard control is possible and those crops are typically much cleaner. It’s also been a great year for Canada thistle. While it’s common to see Canada thistle patches, this year you see more fields where the perennial has taken over large sections. One weed that hasn’t thrived is kochia. Usually by this point in the season big kochia Christmas trees are taking over in some pulse crops. This year, it’s rare to see a crop with a significant kochia problem. Even roadsides have fewer kochia than usual. Wild mustard seeds remain viable a long time and some fields are going to see a lot of seed go back into the ground. Kochia seeds remain viable for only a few years so that weed seed bank should be decreased after this year. I’m Kevin Hursh.
DynAgra, an independent Western Canada-based Company, is dedicated to providing growers with the tools to manage the risk and maximize the profitability of their farm business through the continued innovation of agricultural products and services. We are committed to developing and providing growers with the latest in precision agronomics, variable rate technology, soil fertility, crop protection, fertilizers, custom application and financial solutions.
Tags: agricultural products, agricultural services, Canada thistle, Canola, cereal crops, Clearfield lentils, crop protection, custom application, Dynagra, fertilizers, financial solutions, in-crop weed, kochia, kochia Christmas tree, lentil, precision agronomics, pulse crops, soil fertility, Southwest Saskatchewan, Variable Rate Technology, West Central Saskatchewan, wild mustard
With tight commodity prices, growers are trying to find crops that will return the most to their operation. This sometimes becomes a nightmare because of what was applied the previous year’s crop. We need to be thinking further ahead than we ever had to in the past of what we are planting due to some of the chemistries we use for weed control having residual in them. If you have a Wheat, Barley and Canola rotation then we want to make sure that the year before the canola that we are not using any products that have residual. That seems simple enough but sometimes fields change. This could be the case for this spring in areas so you have to be aware of what was applied in that field. Once we get into the specialty crops like peas, lentils, beans and potatoes we need to go back at least 3 years to see what was sprayed. Keeping good records is the key to knowing what was applied to your fields and can make life so much easier. That was one of the reasons we created My Farm Manager through the DynAgra website. This is your online storage locker with all of your agronomy files in one place.
The other factor of a good chemical rotation is in regards to resistance management. I know it is very easy to use the same product across the farm because it comes in shuttles. There are more instances of group one wild oat resistance every year and in some areas we have group 2 and group 8 resistant wild oats. Wild oats are not the only thing that there is resistance. There is group 2 resistant kochia, chickweed and cleavers to name a few. So when looking at what to spray look out further than the rebate cheque the companies are offering and see what is going to be the best choice for your farm.
Those are my thoughts,
Garth Donald C.C.A
DynAgra, an independent Western Canada-based Company, is dedicated to providing growers with the tools to manage the risk and maximize the profitability of their farm business through the continued innovation of agricultural products and services. We are committed to developing and providing growers with the latest in precision agronomics, variable rate technology, soil fertility, crop protection, fertilizers, custom application and financial solutions.
Tags: barley, beans, Canola, chemical rotation, chickweed, cleavers, commodity prices, crop protection, custom application, Dynagra, fertilizers, financial solutions, kochia, lentils, potatoes, precision agronomics, soil fertility, speas, specialty crops, Variable Rate Technology, wheat, wild oat resistance
So how important is a pre-seed burn off? That question gets asked to me and others in the industry all the time. It can be one of the most important things when it comes to certain weeds and density of weeds. Let’s start with a favourite of most farmers in Alberta, foxtail barley. Since we have lost the use of Sundance we really don’t have a post emergent solution. And because of zero tillage it can flourish because its root system doesn’t get cut off by cultivator shovels anymore either. So the only real option is to give it a good shot of glyphosate in the spring. The only issue is you need to have the coverage to get through the old growth and get control of the plants so low water volumes in this case will hurt your control of the weed. Another favourite is Cleavers. Cleavers can be at both winter and spring annual which make it a very hard plant for staging. I have seen fields where the grower did not do a preburn and when it came to post emergent spraying the winter annual cleavers were in the 10 to 15 whorl stage. So now what do you try and spray this with to try and control this monster? That is what I was saying to myself trying to figure out what to do. We didn’t kill all of those cleavers and they seeded down to make a real mess for the future. This is when prepass was new to the market and with a little planning we could of had a fighting chance to control them with a post emergent herbicide. There are many more weeds like dandelion, narrow leaf hawk’s beard, kochia and even flix weed that can be a problem for minimum and zero tillage operations. So this is why we can take advantage of the products that are available to us.
There are many products that we can use for a pre-seed burn off and they all have some fit in your operation. The big thing I tell my growers is just remember anything with a residual you can’t plant canola into. So just make sure you know what you are spraying and where so we can have a less stressful spring.
Those are my thoughts,
Garth Donald C.C.A.
Tags: burn off, cleavers, dandelion, flix weed, Foxtail Barley, glyphosate, kochia, narrow leaf hawk's beard, pre-seed, Sundance, zero tillage
Glyphosate resistance has been confirmed in kochia weeds in western Kansas. A report posted by Southwest Farm Press says the resistant kochia populations have undergone both greenhouse and field testing by Kansas State University and Monsanto. Kochia is a huge problem in much of the brown and dark brown soil zone of Western Canada. Scientists say that as much as 90 per cent of our kochia population has become resistant to Group 2 herbicides. While there are no reports of glyphosate resistance in Canada, you have to wonder if that problem is coming based on the report from Kansas. Glyphosate has multiple uses – preemergent weed burn-off, Roundup Ready canola, chem-fallow, pre-harvest and post-harvest. It’s a bit scary to think of what we’ll need to do if we ever lose the utility of glyphosate – a product that has become increasingly affordable. It seems clear that there are going to be increasing problems with many types of herbicide resistance. Rotating herbicide groups and using products with multiple modes of action will be increasingly important strategies. I’m Kevin Hursh.
Tags: glyphosate, herbicide, kochia, Monsanto, post-harvest, pre-harvest, Roundup Ready Canola, Southwest Farm Press
