Four Weed-Management Tips For Harvest Time

Sep 30, 2016

University of Tennessee News

Harvest is a good time for U.S. soybean farmers to celebrate a bountiful gathering of their hard work and yearlong efforts. It can also be a time to reflect on lessons learned from environmental, disease and weed pressures from the past growing season, how much yield those stresses cost and how to manage them next year.

Specifically for weeds, you can be a steward of the land and get a jump on next year’s weed management during this year’s harvest. While harvesting your crop, it is very easy for the combine to spread weed seeds throughout your field as well as into neighboring fields.

Below, University of Tennessee Row Crop Weed Specialist Larry Steckel, Ph.D., offers four adjustments you can make to your management practices during harvest that could make your spring and summer weed management easier.

1. Manage weeds before they take over your field. Proactive management will improve your yields and reduce the chances of having herbicide-resistant weeds develop in your fields.

2. Don't Leave large patches of weeds in the field. This will diminish the amount of weed seed spread throughout the rest of that field.

Video: A chain harrow is a game changer

Utilizing a rotational grazing method on our farmstead with our sheep helps to let the pasture/paddocks rest. We also just invested in a chain harrow to allow us to drag the paddocks our sheep just left to break up and spread their manure around, dethatch thicker grass areas, and to rough up bare dirt areas to all for a better seed to soil contact if we overseed that paddock. This was our first time really using the chain harrow besides initially testing it out. We are very impressed with the work it did and how and area that was majority dirt, could be roughed up before reseeding.

Did you know we also operate a small business on the homestead. We make homemade, handcrafted soaps, shampoo bars, hair and beard products in addition to offering our pasture raised pork, lamb, and 100% raw honey. You can find out more about our products and ingredients by visiting our website at www.mimiandpoppysplace.com. There you can shop our products and sign up for our monthly newsletter that highlights a soap or ingredient, gives monthly updates about the homestead, and also lists the markets, festivals, and events we’ll be attending that month.