Friday, October 4, 2013

Don't Harvest This Weed!

As LuAnn and I were chatting about the water filter light on our new Samsung refrigerator, I opened the Corn and Soybean Digest that came in yesterday's mail.  The editor's piece had a catchy title, don't harvest this weed!  Of course it is a picture of Palmer Amaranth that is driving southern farmers crazy like the tall waterhemp is over Brad Law's way in Missouri and all over the Midwest.

Ours still looks like a modified pigweed and from my scouting this summer I would say we did a fair job controlling the thing in this region.  Many have a double root which can be white, pink or red.  I call it a hybrid pigweed.  A fair job won't be good enough, we have to be excellent and consistent on these pigweeds of all types!

The beans I have been inspecting have break outs of lambsquarter to the northeast of me and giant ragweed everywhere.  Every farmer battled giant ragweed this year in Ohio.  RoundUp Ready or not, most fields had at least several to many giant ragweeds.  Last year it was Marestail and it's still here but giant ragweed was the challenge this year.  2,4-D and or Banvel or dicamba did the best job of controlling but still there some escapes.

Pigweed was not the problem I feared it would be this year so watch out next year!  I saw enough last fall I thought sure it would be a problem but giant ragweed was worse.  If this good fall weather continues, a fall spray and/or cover crop will be very important.  The cover cropped fields had less problems in the fields I've scouted and the fields with no fall burndown had more weeds.  The farmers using structured water and reduced amounts of chemical had less weeds than those of us using "regular water."

What are your weed problems and how do you plan to battle them?

Ed Winkle

3 comments:

  1. I HATE TWH!!! One more reason to try the Cereal rye...i mayeven try a field of nongmo corn so i can use atrazine. Did i say how much i hate TWH??



    R2 is latest you should spray rup on beans and 3qts of a 4# product is too max and will stun beans, shorten there season and lower yield.

    If rup didn't kill it the first time more rup is not the answer. Pre chem like prowl and sencor in with your burn down, plus an authority or valor product ASAP after planting then zuda or dual with flexstar at 21 days after emergence. If any TWH emerges again cobra and prayer when the TWH is small. Use the flexstar early as it has 10 month rotation to corn and 4 months to wheat and cobra doesn't....if you use cobra first and you have more germinate and wanna go corn next year you are rolling the dice with carry over issues.

    Also prayer every day for clean beans wouldn't be a bad tank mix partner.

    The days of having clean beans with just spraying one thing are gone.

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  2. Pigweed and other weeds are highly evolved species: Just like robbers could time the guards rounds, these weeds time the application of herbicide and the scoutings. They have a molecule in the seed's germ that tell them "wait for it, wait for it, go!" when they grow the most without the farmer noticing. ;)

    Both amaranthus and chenopodium weeds have been in our fields since Man started growing crops, they are traditional weeds in Europe too. Obviously herbicides doesn't do anything more than tilling did, it seems to make matters worse, transforming them into superweeds that are harder to get rid off. Where, or rather when, are these robot weeders? There is no growing resistant or tolerant to mechanical weeding.

    Funny that both amaranthus and chenopodium have species that were and still are cultivated in some regions. They are both food and weed, good and evil...

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  3. I hate weeds period! I hope we find a use for them as the population increases.

    Ed Winkle

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