How to Catch Weed Escapes
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Including herbicide treatments in both your fall and spring production plans is ideal to ensure weeds won’t compete with crop growth come spring. In reality, though, unfavorable weather can affect both weed growth and your ability to target weeds when they are small and most vulnerable.
“We have learned over the years that a fall herbicide treatment with residuals greatly decreases our spring weed pressure,” says wheat grower Jon Betlaf. “However, last fall, no weeds were emerging because it was so dry and cold at night. That meant we were forced to deal with spring weeds we normally wouldn’t be fighting.”
“Rezuvant really took care of our winter annuals and helped with kochia control.”
— Jon Betlaf
Betlaf and his son, Brady, faced spring populations of kochia, Canada thistle, common lambsquarters and grasses, including green and yellow foxtail and pigeon grass. They turned to their agronomist to help them develop a new weed control plan for their Dickinson, North Dakota, farming operation.
Their agronomist, Steve Marmon with Helena AgriEnterprise in New England, North Dakota, got the farming duo enrolled in a field trial for Rezuvant® herbicide with Arylex® active.
“Rezuvant really took care of our winter annuals and helped with kochia control,” Betlaf says. “It gives you a wider application window to better manage spring spraying and helps break up resistance development.”
Other advances offered by Rezuvant, Marmon says, include improved control of Persian darnel, wild oats, foxtail, marestail and barnyardgrass, including those with Group 2 resistance.
“Rezuvant provides us with a Group 1 grass product and a new site of action to minimize resistance development,” he says. “Rezuvant also allows for crop rotation flexibility, controls bigger kochia, gives us both a higher rate of the active ingredient in Starane (fluroxypyr) plus Arylex active, and has a barley label.”
In addition to field-testing Rezuvant, the Betlafs swapped from WideMatch® herbicide to WideARmatch® herbicide in their crop protection tank mixes.
Their spring wheat was sprayed with a tank mix including WideARmatch, Everest 3.0 herbicide, Unison herbicide, fertilizer, an adjuvant and a fungicide.
“With the new Arylex technology and 20% more Starane, WideARmatch gives us extra control of kochia and a new site of activity to fight resistance, and it controls bigger weeds,” Marmon says. “It also picks up marestail and common mallow. That’s a lot of additional weed control value for a small difference in price.”
Without a fall burndown herbicide treatment, Marmon says, his growers are often faced with increased weed pressure, larger weeds and weeds that have emerged after planting, such as tansy mustard.
“In 2021, our weeds were coming up at the same time that the wheat crop was beginning to grow,” Betlaf says. “We didn’t need to get any further behind, and we had to make sure we got the weeds under control when the wheat was at the three- to six-leaf stage.”
Rezuvant®, WideMatch® and WideARmatch® are not registered for sale or use in all states. Arylex® is a registered active ingredient. Contact your state pesticide regulatory agency to determine if a product is registered for sale or use in your state. Always read and follow label directions.
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