Wheat has been harvested and sugarbeet farmers are participating in the preharvest campaign. And corn and soybean harvest will be right around the corner.
Review Your Weeds Management Strategy Before and at Harvest
Wheat has been harvested and sugarbeet farmers are participating in the preharvest campaign. And corn and soybean harvest will be right around the corner. Before you lose the opportunity, I suggest walking your fields to observe weed escapes. Identify and document weeds and make hand-drawn maps of areas of the field that are particularly weed infested. You may find that the map of weed escapes aligns with an early-season or past-season event. For example, a farmer in West Central Minnesota indicated the map of waterhemp escapes was closely aligned to the portion of the field that had standing water during the 2014 season.
Lists of weeds and spatial maps of fields are extremely valuable field records. Following harvest, you will have time to review these data, consider future crop sequences and review your weeds management strategy to determine if you are on-track or if adjustments need to be made to the strategy. I frequently indicate in my presentations that there is nothing wrong with reviewing and adjusting the strategy since ‘data’ will either verify that what has been selected is working or will indicate that slight adjustments are still needed.
Review the herbicides used in the field in 2015 and determine if the weeds management approach represented herbicides with multiple sites of action. NDSU extension weeds personnel promote the use of herbicides from thee unique herbicide family sites of action during a field season. Contrast the herbicides and site of action with herbicides to be used in crops in the sequence in 2016 and beyond. And of course, attend meetings to learn about new herbicides and weeds management systems and evaluate how they can be potentially integrated into the weeds management strategy.
Finally, continue to manage field perimeters, drown out area, and non-crop areas, since weeds that may have survived a partial herbicide dose on field borders will produce seed and can be a repository for the introduction of resistance weeds into a field.