Agricultural News
Dr. Todd Baughman talks Weed Resistance for Summer Crops
Mon, 27 Jan 2020 12:48:33 CST
Dr. Todd Baughman is the Weed Science Program Support Leader at the Institute for Agricultural Biosciences at Oklahoma State University. Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays caught up with him to talk about how producers should tackle weed control.
Baughman says you always want to give the crop a chance to jump out in front of the weeds, "Having a good residual program, upfront, right after you plant that cotton or soybeans or whatever the crop is. Giving that crop a chance to jump out in front of those weeds helps us tremendously from a competition standpoint. The other thing that we see is with a number of acres that most of our growers are farming, they're not able to get across those in a timely fashion, with say a post only program. So that pre-emergence gives them a wider window to come back and control some of those weeds that are up, and they can start earlier, and get finished on their farms before those weeds get out of control if they don't have that pre-up front."
Baughman says you always want to catch the weeds as small as you can because it gives you better control, "That's definitely the case, especially with our newer technologies. We go back to say the start of my career, we could basically no matter how big the weed was, we could control it with Roundup, or we can put enough applications of Round-up out there to get ourselves out of a bind. That's not necessarily the case even with these new technologies, timing is critical. And that's where those pre-emergent herbicides, give us more flexibility to make sure that we get them out there in a timely fashion.
Resistance can be a problem, and Baughman says right now the biggest problem is with Palmer Pigweed, or Careless weed, "We've got resistance issues in pockets throughout the state now with that weed. It's In some parts of the state and parts of central Oklahoma. I would say if you've got a resistant weed problem, if you don't take care of that, it really doesn't matter what your fertility program is, what your insect program is, it's the number one thing that you have to address.
Looking ahead, Baughman says they have some new technologies coming out for weed control, "One of the things that BASF is working on is a technology called HPPD Resistance for soybeans and cotton both, which will allow pre-emergent applications of that technology. It will allow those products to be applied pre-emergence to cotton and soybeans, which will give us a new residual without potential injury. Then we can follow up with these new technologies, so hopefully, we're going to see those in the next two to three years."
Baughman said when planting; it's important to realize that some herbicides have crop rotation restrictions, "With the current market, you know guys are very fluid with their cropping plans. So they need to be fluid and think about, you know, if I could potentially roll to wheat next year, then I may not want to look at that particular product. Or if I want to roll to corn next year, so they've got to think about, not what they're definite plan is, but how that plan could change. They don't want to allow their herbicide program to reduce their flexibility, especially with the current markets."
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