Weeds

I spent the day talking about glyphosate resistant weeds yesterday. Many farmers are still in denial whether or not they have them and I can assure them they are here and will get worse.

So what do you do about them in soybeans? The easiest answer is LL soybeans. They really worked. I had no typical resistant weed issues with LL soybeans this year. I had very good yields. I have pictures of fields that "crashed" in this area this year like there are all over the south, east and midwest.

Marestail is very difficult to kill here under any system but Liberty Link. There was not enough time to spray 2,4-D this year and even if you did, could you get a good kill? I didn't see anyone who did.

If you used a full rate of residual, you could have planted non GMO soybeans and gotten a premium. I got an email yesterday that a friend demo'd a new yellow CNH combine with MacDon head for a farmer near Bloomingburg and he got 87 bushels per acre and a $1.50 non GMO premium on top of that! Talk about hitting the soybean lottery, that would be it!

I did well but I didn't do that well. I did control all my broadleaf weeds with Ignite. I had no resistant Marestail, Lambsquarter, Giant Ragweed or Common Ragweed. I had some grasses and continue to learn how to control them.

If you are sitting on the fence and don't think you have resistant weeds, think again. If you don't have them, you will if you continue a RR program without residual chemical and any breakthrough weeds will enlarge the patch of resistant weeds.

It is easier to take measures to control them now. I took this picture just down the road from one of our farms. I think that farmer is in denial.

Ed