In the middle of June last year, I received a call from Perry, a producer who farms 900 acres in central Alberta. Perry grows canola, wheat, barley, and this season, weeds. He called me looking for answers about the weed problem in his canola crop. He thought it must be the herbicide he’d used two weeks before.
“The chemical I bought and sprayed doesn’t work,” Perry said. “This must be a bad batch.”
I travelled out to Perry’s farm to take a look. Perry did have a weed problem. Healthy lamb’s quarters, wild buckwheat, chickweed, cleavers and dandelions grew along with his canola crop. I found a few dead plants, but most of the damage to the weeds was limited to a few large burn spots on some of the leaves. Clearly his herbicide wasn’t suppressing the weeds.
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Surprisingly, the canola crop looked as good as could be expected. The plants were performing well and looked very healthy.
I had to rule out a number of factors before we could solve Perry’s weed problem, such as fertilizer rate, environmental factors, spraying rate, field and growing conditions, water source, and equipment failure.
The weather record around the time of spraying looked fine, and there was no rainfall activity directly after spraying. Perry’s growing and field conditions were good. He was producing healthy stands of canola. Perry sprayed his herbicide at the right time and at the correct application rate. Fertilization rate could not be a factor because he’d provided the right amount of nutrients for his soil.
For his water source, Perry used water from his well, as he had in the past, which usually yielded good results.
I thought perhaps we were dealing with product failure, but when I checked with other producers who used the same chemical lot, there had been no other complaints.
Perry is an experienced agronomic producer and I knew this was not his first time around the block. The product was not performing properly, but why?
It was time to check for equipment failure. As we approached Perry’s sprayer I noticed he had newish-looking nozzles. When I asked about them, he told me he’d replaced his old nozzles this year after considering the effects of drift on his neighbour’s fields and his role in being a good environmental steward. I applauded Perry’s consideration, but I immediately knew the root of his weed control problem.
“I’ve solved your mystery,” I said.
Why does Perry have weeds in his canola crop? Send your diagnosis to COUNTRY GUIDE, Box 9800, Winnipeg, Man., R3C 3K7; email [email protected]or fax 204-947-9136 c/o Kari Belanger. Best suggestions will be pooled and one winner will be drawn for a chance to win a COUNTRY GUIDE cap and a one-year subscription to the magazine. The best answer, along with the reasoning which solved the mystery, will appear in the next Crop Adviser’s Solution File.
