man with skin burns from giant hogweed

PHOTOS: Pest Patrol: Giant hogweed, and its look-alike that’s far more friendly

A farmer asks, “I’m worried about giant hogweed because I hear it causes 
severe dermatitis and blindness. How do I identify it?”

Reading Time: < 1 minute When plant parts of giant hogweed are torn open, the plant exudes a sap that contains light-activated chemicals known as furanocoumarins. When these compounds come in contact with the skin, they cause burn-like rashes and/or blisters, the severity of which will depend on how much sap you are exposed to. There is one very common […] Read more

(WHO.int)

WHO cancer unit to analyze 2,4-D

Reading Time: 2 minutes Reuters — The World Health Organization is set to examine a widely used pesticide and agribusiness is bracing for bad news, less than three months after the group classified another popular herbicide as “probably” cancer-causing. Twenty-four scientists representing WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) will analyze scientific findings regarding links between cancer in […] Read more


man in greenhouse with plant

Controlling crop weeds with beneficial insects

Flea beetles that eat leafy spurge are only the first wave of biological weed control

Reading Time: 5 minutes What is it about weeds? No matter how hard you try to eradicate them, they always come back. Worse still, each method of weed control has its drawbacks. Spraying with herbicides can lead to weed resistance if the same product is used continuously. Tillage can result in soil erosion (remember the Dirty ’30s?), and although […] Read more

fungicide boom on a sprayer

Fungicide resistance creeping up in crops

Fortunately, we already have many of the tools we need to delay or stop resistance in its tracks

Reading Time: 5 minutes We hear a lot about herbicide-resistant weeds these days. Repeated use of herbicides, especially ones from the same group and with similar modes of action, promotes the growth of weed populations that the chemicals can no longer control. A prime example is the emergence of weeds resistant to glyphosate, the most widely used weed control […] Read more


kochia

Weed management. It’s time to get ahead before it’s too late

With herbicide resistance on the rise, is integrated weed management an idea whose time has finally arrived?

Reading Time: 5 minutes If you want to know how bad weed resistance can get, ask the cotton farmers of Georgia about Palmer amaranth. From a single field in Macon County in 2005, glyphosate-resistant Palmer amaranth has exploded across the southern U.S. Cotton Belt. A member of the pigweed family, Palmer amaranth has seriously affected weed management in cotton […] Read more

farmer

Fighting weed resistance head on

Fighting weed resistance will be a long, tough battle, but the latest information says farmers are definitely paying attention

Reading Time: 5 minutes Doing chores on a mixed farm in South Australia, Josh Lade dreamed of working on a really big grain farm. It was a dream that intensified as he was growing up, like when he used to put in shifts on the large inland grain operation owned by members of his mother’s side of the family. […] Read more


crop sprayer equipment

Drift versus volatility when spraying your crop

Spraying on a quiet, still morning is the best way to cut your drift risk, right? (Answer: No!)

Reading Time: 7 minutes Just when farming already seemed complicated enough, here are more misconceptions that science is disproving. Except this time, the new findings will help more growers get more value from their crop protection dollar. The best part is, you’re probably one of those growers too. Drift — Physical Trying to paint drift as worse than volatility, […] Read more

wild oats

Herbicide resistance isn’t getting any better

Herbicide resistance is almost guaranteed to keep getting worse. But you might be able to keep it manageable on your farm

Reading Time: 6 minutes Wild oats have reigned as Western Canada’s worst weed for about 40 years, and multiple herbicide resistance and farmers’ reluctance to alter their practices may ensure the title doesn’t change hands in the foreseeable future. “Based on our surveys, we estimate that over half of the cultivated land in the Prairies — about 36 million […] Read more


A crop sprayer equipped with Pattern Master.

Pest Patrol: Improving spray coverage and reducing drift

Working 9 to 5: What a way to kill those weeds!

Reading Time: 3 minutes Competitive broadleaf weeds, specifically lamb’s quarters and velvetleaf, are easier to kill when herbicides are applied during the day, generally between the hours of 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Most will joke that this is simply because civil servants like me do not want to work before 9 a.m. and after 6 p.m. Touché. However, […] Read more

Oilseed Rape Pods

Stacked tolerance traits taking on herbicide-resistant weeds

Next-generation herbicide stacks are on their way to help fight not only weed resistance, but more weed species too

Reading Time: 8 minutes A number of next-generation herbicide-tolerant crops are in the pipeline for soybean and canola growers, but the offerings won’t include any magic bullets. Instead, what we’re likely to see first are more stacked tolerance traits. It’s because life science companies have their own kind of stacking to deal with. Their new traits are lined up, […] Read more