The list of key players and systems includes WEEDit, Xarvio, Bosch, Agrifac and Einböck. And the potential is large enough that major players are entering the sector, like John Deere’s 2017 purchase of Blue River Technology, a company that adapted “machine learning” technology to spray applications.

Last September, Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show hosted a field demonstration of the Dot A-U1 power system. Designed by DOT Technology Corporation, it’s a platform that incorporates seeders, sprayers and spreaders in a completely autonomous, GPS-based operating system. It can house a SeedMaster 30-foot seeder or row-crop planter or a New Leader spreader.

It can also accommodate a Pattison Connect 120-foot sprayer, offering an entry point for robotic weed management. In addition to herbicide applications, the unit can provide sectional control, variable-rate application capabilities and turn compensation.

For Robert Saik, the potential for using robotics in weed management is immense. During the speaking and meeting season, he’s been posing questions to growers and industry stakeholders on what lies ahead for autonomous systems.

One of the questions is about growing crops, and about the struggle to get the right product on the right plant at the right time and at the right rate.

“What would you do if you didn’t have to do it?” asks Saik, chief executive officer of DOT Technology Corp. “When you start thinking about that and start with the whole agronomic process — variable-rate seed, variable-rate fertilizer — the answer there is ‘Yes’ and ‘Yes’. But what about in-season variable-rate fertilizer application as a granular? What about variable-rate herbicide, variable-rate fungicide, variable-rate insecticide, variable-rate desiccation or in-season foliar application or late-season nitrogen on wheat for protein?”

Such questions are getting asked in the followup to the GreenSeeker and WeedSeeker systems of the 2000s. New systems like WEEDit and companies like Xarvio and Bosch are working on optical recognition systems for weeds.

“The technology has advanced far enough where we can identify green-on-brown and spray for it,” says Saik. “That technology exists, but the really exciting stuff is when you start to diagnose and ascertain green-on-green. Could you figure out what sowthistle is inside a soybean field — and kill it? That’s where the technology is evolving.”

At a recent Agrifac meeting in Red Deer, Saik listened to an Australian farmer who’d installed cameras on his sprayer and was experimenting with herbicide applications, reducing them by 90 per cent. Such savings on their own are worth considering, but with Blue River’s latest technology there is a system that eliminates weeds around a lettuce plant, then rogues the weaker lettuce plants. It creates a more uniform, precisely spaced crop, leading to greater consistency of produce.

That’s also where the technology has its easiest, more probable entry point, i.e. into the horticulture sector, where margins are higher than in row crop production and growers can justify the initial outlay and spacing requirements.

Is that spacing issue a problem for robotic weed management in corn, soybeans or wheat? If it’s a robotic tillage implement that runs between plants, then perhaps cereal production would challenge such a system.

Saik foresees another impediment to the adoption of automated weed management and that’s the fact that GPS is not used in the majority of herbicide applications for row crops. Drift in GPS signals can result in applicators driving on the rows instead of between them, crushing crop plants. That, notes Saik, is why driving a sprayer is done manually.

“I sat in a Case sprayer (last fall in Sioux Falls, North Dakota) that was using stereoscopy cameras mounted on the sprayer and it was running between the rows of soybeans, 30-inch rows and 15-inch tires at 15 miles an hour,” he says. “And it was 100 per cent driven by camera-vision guiding the sprayer. The cameras were looking at the rows of the crop and the furrow, and that was guiding the sprayer.”

That technology is currently available and companies are working to bring more of that to the field. It’s one aspect that Saik believes most people don’t realize when considering robotic systems in weed management, yet it’s likely to catch on quicker than any other technology.

Costing the possibilities

The question that enters into most of these discussions is “How much will this cost me?” Last September at the Outdoor Farm Show, the Dot A-U1 platform was listed at US$260,000, and Saik says the pushback on the price has been minimal. In Western Canada, the key determinant is whether a farm can operate more than one Dot and be cost-effective. In Eastern Canada, one Dot platform is expected to fit operations in the 2,000- to 2,500-acre range.

The economic drivers will be numerous, adds Saik, and DOT Technology will be working to compare its systems, including the Pattison Connect sprayer with existing technologies, and the capital expenditure calculations. It’s believed they are $100,000 cheaper than using a high-clearance sprayer.

“The second piece of the puzzle is that operationally, Dot only consumes about 4.7 gallons of diesel fuel per hour,” says Saik. “A third component is that you don’t have a person to drive the sprayer and a fourth is that we believe compaction is less.”

Those factors are to be tested in 2020, particularly the compaction issue since the Dot system weighs 42,000 to 44,000 pounds fully loaded, meaning it’s as much as 12,000 pounds lighter than a high-clearance sprayer.

Yet despite the savings and potential for improving soil health, the biggest challenge with robotic weed management might be convincing a grower that they can trust GPS signalling technology and thus be willing to relinquish some level of control.

“It’ll happen over time, but right now, you can’t blame the marketplace for being skeptical,” says Saik, conceding that progress will be slow, regardless of the positive numbers. “Growers have to see it, they have to know it’s proven so we have a long ways yet. But even by summertime, we anticipate turning heads with Dot doing full-fledged field operations, seeding and spraying. It’s high tech, with high touch, but it’s years in the future.”

More than just driving

Another person who believes in the enormous potential for robotics and advanced weed technology is Mike Cowbrough. He agrees that the capability within these systems and the benefits to growers and the industry are far-reaching. But as with the precision ag sphere of technologies, it often amounts to the same questions: How do I effectively manage my weeds, and what do I use to effectively manage them?

What’s often not being examined in the consideration for these systems and technologies is the physiology of the plants. Herbicides are the chemical means, robotics are the mechanical means, but how will the plant be controlled?

“It’s reminiscent of herbicide development and exploration in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s,” says Cowbrough, field crops weed specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA). “Ultimately, it’s going to come down to who will be the best at differentiating crop from weed, and once they’re able to do that differentiation, who has the best strategy to kill the weed?”

And that encompasses two components in the robotics sphere: recognizing what is crop and what is weed. The industry is evolving and questioning whether the technology developers have spent too much time worrying about identifying weeds instead of identifying the crop. Cowbrough believes the company that can do that and combine that with an effective strategy to kill the weed will be the most successful.

“My skepticism on the artificial intelligence is that when you’re identifying plant species, you’re not only looking at them, there are lots of senses in the identification phase,” says Cowbrough. He adds there are tactile and sensory aspects in identification. “There’s no question that the technologies are getting cheaper and better and more efficient. But I do think it’s oversold, this idea that a technology can differentiate between common waterhemp and pigweed at the cotyledon stage.”

Yet Cowbrough agrees that perhaps identification of specific weed species is less of a focus than identifying how it grows and reproduces or whether it’s a vining, upright or rosette species. How they’re killed may become the primary concern, in which case the robot still needs the guidance of a person on how to effectively deal with weeds.

“There are a lot of things that conceptually make sense,” says Cowbrough. But, he adds, “There’s this idea that this going to be out in two or three years. Maybe that’s the case, but I think we’re in the early days.”

The post Robotic weed management takes to the fields appeared first on Country Guide.

A: This is the question I’ve been asked a lot this past winter meeting season, and one I always struggle to answer. There are some legitimately promising concepts being tested such as robotic weeders (Figure 1 at top) and weed seed destruction tools, but admittedly most new frontiers in weed management are several years away from being usable on the farm.

Perhaps when people ask this question they are thinking in terms of herbicides. Although there are seemingly many new herbicide names, when you dig down into what active ingredients make up these “new” products, there really isn’t anything new for 2018. A quick way to see for yourself is to search the term “new” in the pest manager app’s “pesticide info” section (Figure 2 below).

With some of the new products, we even go so far as to point out other products that the “new” product is equivalent to. Admittedly, I struggle to keep track of what’s actually in all of the new co-packs and pre-mixed products, and I read more product labels than I care to admit (it’s somewhat depressing). Thankfully the active ingredient compositions of all herbicides are summarized in the pest manager app and the provincial Guide to Weed Control.

Sometimes, though, we do ourselves a disservice by thinking only about what is new. It’s good to remind ourselves of the basic principles to minimize crop losses from weeds. That way, when we’re thinking of making tweaks to our weed management plans, we can make sure that they are consistent with the basic principles which are:

1. Always have the crop emerge before weeds do.
2. Strive to reduce the population density of weeds. The more weeds, the greater the competition against your crop and a higher probability of selecting herbicide-resistant biotypes. Reducing weed density requires multiple strategies including tillage, cover crops, crop rotation (ideally with fall-seeded and perennial crops) and effective herbicides.
3. Most herbicides should be used to control weeds no larger than the six-leaf stage of growth. If using glyphosate, weeds should be less than 10 centimetres (four inches) tall at time of application (Figure 3 below).
4. Yield losses are minimized in soybeans when weeds are controlled from soybean emergence until the third trifoliate stage.
5. Yield losses are minimized in corn when weeds are controlled from corn emergence until the six-leaf over stage of growth.

The 2018 season marks my 17th with OMAFRA. If there are areas that I should be pursuing to better serve you, I would welcome any constructive feedback. Be safe!

Have a question you want answered? Hashtag #PestPatrol on Twitter to @cowbrough or email Mike at mike.cowbrough@ontario.ca.

The post Pest Patrol: New herbicide names may not mean new chemistry appeared first on Country Guide.

In spite of all the differences that come with farming in different regions, with different crops and weeds, the one thing that’s familiar everywhere is the definition of a problem weed.

It’s the weed that’s tough to control, and sometimes can’t be controlled.

Dr. François Tardif takes that definition a couple of steps further.

“Either it is not on the label, or it is on the label but the level of control is not satisfactory, or it’s variable depending on crop stage or conditions,” says Tardif, a professor in the department of plant agriculture at the University of Guelph. “Or it could be a new weed that jumped into a field after a grower controlled the normal weeds. It could also be a weed that farmers inquire about a lot because they’re not happy with the control.”

Tardif remembers the days when Pursuit was the dominant molecule in soybeans, and problem weeds were three-seeded mercury and field violet. Then Roundup Ready technology in soybeans took care of them.

Earlier than that, in the 1980s, quackgrass was the primary headache. “They had two national conferences on how to deal with that weed,” recalls Tardif. “Then fast forward 20 years with new molecules in corn — like Ultim — and cheaper glyphosate… quackgrass is something a farmer shouldn’t have.”

In the past 20 years, weed science has also evolved in its understanding of weed dynamics, including the critical weed-free period. Add to that, too, the adaptability of all weed species, and according to some, it’s meant the end of the one-pass, single mode-of-action approach to controlling weeds. In fact, during that time, the word “control” has given way to “management.”

It bears repeating

It’s for these reasons that one crop adviser believes the message on problem weeds needs to be repeated. The lack of new molecules — of a glyphosate-type revolutionary development — means the methods of dealing with those new or evolving species must change. Mervyn Erb refers to a problem weed as “anything that’s where it shouldn’t be,” and adds that there’s too much at stake to worry about overusing the term.

“It’s not a hard sell to use soil-applied herbicides on Roundup Ready crops. People are quite willing to do it and they understand why they need to do it,” says Erb, who operates Agri-Solve Inc. in Brucefield, Ont. He adds that the ag press has done a decent job of delivering the message. “We have to keep it on everybody’s mind so they don’t forget.”

Erb says he doesn’t find it too hard to convince growers to adjust their practices to deal with problem weeds. When growers pay $300 for a bag of corn seed, they don’t want to hear they also have to add some soil-applied product up front. So they may grumble, adds Erb, but they realize they have to pay attention.

Erb also notes the increased use of cover crops, noting that he’s read U.S. reports about weed seed mixed in with cover crop seed. Where much of the product originated from the U.S. Northwest — Oregon and Idaho — some is now coming into Ontario from Ohio and Indiana, with the potential for introducing some bad weeds to the mix.

For Erb, part of the message on problem weeds is that what’s a problem for some isn’t a huge issue for others. What’s growing in the field — or how it’s used — can have a lot to do with what’s defined as a problem.

“You wouldn’t normally call Italian ryegrass a problem weed, but I have a grower who established grass waterways and part of that mixture was perennial ryegrass,” he says. “It’s a low-growing, well-rooted grass and doesn’t grow as tall as orchard or brome grass, and it’s nice to use in a grass waterway. For some reason, somebody who was making up his grass mix on two of his farms threw Italian ryegrass into the mix instead of perennial ryegrass.”

That left Italian ryegrass scattered across both farms following two wheat harvests, and Erb says it’s become a problem weed for those farms. Glyphosate doesn’t kill it but fortunately Focus, a grass herbicide, has some activity.

Different species, different regions

Much has been made about the four glyphosate-resistant weed species (Canada fleabane, giant ragweed, common ragweed and waterhemp) that challenge growers, primarily in Ontario. The story of glyphosate-resistant Canada fleabane has been a particular focus, both because of its resistance to multiple modes of action and its rapid spread from Essex County in 2010 to the Quebec border in 2015. But what happens if any of those aren’t the problem in a particular region?

What’s the problem weed then?

For Clare Kinlin, horsetail is the problem weed in his part of eastern Ontario, not fleabane or ragweed. When it comes to glyphosate-resistant weed species, he sees more volunteer canola that’s glyphosate resistant, and resistant to the imidazolinone herbicides such as Pursuit. That leads to some interesting reflections on how farmers are approaching their particular weed management issues. Asked how things have changed in the past 10 to 12 years, Kinlin responds that grower awareness has changed.

“There’s more awareness of chemistries and modes of action, and a better overall awareness,” says Kinlin, an agronomist with MacEwen Agricentre in Maxville. “It doesn’t mean we’re doing it better, but it means we’re more aware of it.”

At the same time, Kinlin insists weed management is more complicated than it was even five years ago. Yes, glyphosate and Roundup Ready technologies simplified weed management for a time, and he estimates that up to 20 per cent of the soybeans in his part of the province are still sprayed with glyphosate only. Yet Kinlin is quick to note that conditions that challenge growers in southern Ontario are not the same ones hindering growers in the east. For one, he disagrees with the default mindset surrounding a two-pass program, stating that he can use Halex once a season and get good weed control.

“If I have a really good soybean program and a really good corn program, I don’t need to spray it twice, as long as I’m on top of the weeds every single year, and I don’t take a year off,” says Kinlin. “In eastern Ontario and western Quebec, it’s a huge post-emerge market, and we don’t have growers wanting to lay down Primextra before the season.”

Those who do rely on pre-emerge or more than one spray are usually the ones who know every weed species on their farms, and are willing to employ multiple modes or more than one application. The rest are content to spray once and would like herbicides that can control 99 per cent of their weeds. There are those who find Group 2 resistance a challenge, especially in soybeans. And with IP soybeans, he says there is a need for a two-pass herbicide program, because weeds there cannot be controlled with a single pass.

The Roundup Ready soybean program is a good residual with the glyphosate, depending on the weed species in a field, adds Kinlin. For any broadleaf weed control residual activity, the Xtend system will be a good fit. In corn, growers can still use Roundup Ready technology, and when it comes to the volunteer canola issue, he believes the arrival of the Xtend technology will also be a huge benefit.

Says Kinlin: “We have the tools, but we need to use the whole toolbox, not just the top drawer,” he says.

The post The problem with problem weeds appeared first on Country Guide.

Average flax yields have hovered around 22 bu./ac. for many years, and although growers in some areas of Western Canada have achieved double that, it’s not always consistent, so improving yield continues to be a key focus of agronomy research.

• Read more: Tips for better flax management

Many factors contribute to yield, and researchers in Saskatchewan and Manitoba have been working on a three-year project to update agronomic practices.

“We’re focusing on the agronomy,” says Rachel Evans, extension agronomist at the Flax Council of Canada. “As varieties and equipment change, and as our climate changes, there is a need to go back and re-look at what we’re recommending.”

At the end of this year’s season, researchers will have 12 site years of data about seeding rates, seeding dates, row spacing, weed management, fungicide use and fertilizer rates, and some of these results are already creating interest.

Researchers started with what’s called an ideal plot, i.e. a combination of all of the best management practices to date as a control plot in four separate trials. One trial then looked at fertilizers and seed treatments, another at herbicides and fungicides, a third at seeding rates, dates, depth and row spacing, and the trial at crop rotation seeding into five different crop stubbles.

The trials, says Evans, are pointing out some “low hanging fruit, one of them being fertilizing appropriately based on what your background soil fertility levels are.”

Fertilize what you need

Unlike some fertility trials where researchers evaluate standard rates such as 25, 50, 100 or 150 lbs./ac. of nitrogen (N), the flax trial started with soil tests and then topped up required fertilizer to achieve a 45 bu./ac. yield.

Plots with high background nitrogen (N) didn’t see a significant yield response to added nitrogen rate, which made sense as the soil already had enough to produce that 45-bushel yield, says Evans. “But when we have low N, we see a significant response to fertilizer rate.”

It’s a valuable learning, not just for agronomics, but economics too, Evans says. “Flax is a crop that does respond, but knowing where you’re starting from is important.”

Seed early

Researchers seeded flax on the ideal seeding date of May 15, and also a week earlier, one week later and two weeks later. The latest seeding date showed a yield penalty.

“We have a lot of flexibility with flax seeding dates up until the May long weekend. After that we start to see yields drop off,” says Evans.

Flax has fairly good frost tolerance, she adds, and it is a long-season crop, requiring anywhere from 95 to 125 days to mature, so seeding early can be a strategy to help growers combine early.

Says Evans, “Seeding before the May long weekend is the major message.”

Weed management

Three weed management trials currently underway at the University of Saskatchewan are looking at herbicide options, integrated weed management strategies, and rotations, although results are still preliminary and analysis is currently underway.

In a herbicide screening trial, some new and existing products which are not yet registered for flax are being evaluated. Some are definitely showing potential, so there may be more herbicide options for flax growers coming down the pipe, says associate professor Dr. Chris Willenborg, who is heading up the weed management trials.

Another trial looking at integrated weed management strategies is finding some good results when using a higher seeding rate of 800 seeds per square metre combined with a taller cultivar and early seeding dates.

“Seeding at 800 seeds per square metre gives a plant stand around 450 plants per square metre which we believe is ideal,” says Willenborg. “We also found that the taller flax cultivar tended to give better plant populations, especially when seeded early, and this contributed to improved competitive ability.”

The higher seeding rate, tall cultivar and early seeding combination had no negative influence on wild oat seed production, but it did reduce wild oat biomass and increase crop biomass in the trials.

“A lot of flax growers probably aren’t seeding at that high rate,” Willenborg says. “Our data would suggest they should be, and also that flax cultivar is important when it comes to competing, particularly, with Group 1-resistant wild oats, which is a big problem in flax.”

The jury, though, is still out on another trial evaluating the best rotation to set up a four-year flax rotation from a weed management perspective.

Pasmo management

Flax breeding and research into pasmo management as well as fungicide timing and drought resistance are being funded through the Growing Forward 2 Agri-Innovation Program.

Although the breeding program at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC) Morden Research and Development Centre closed last year, the flax pathology program remains and is focusing on developing genetic resistance to pasmo.

In the past, the program has successfully identified and made resistance genes available to plant breeding programs for other flax diseases — rust, fusarium wilt and powdery mildew — which have been bred into flax cultivars for growers.

Scientists are working to do the same for pasmo, and have already identified some promising genetic material, although pasmo presents more of a challenge than other flax diseases because it has multiple races, so multiple genes are required to provide effective resistance to the pathogen.

“We have screened around 3,000 accessions of flax from around the world and identified sources of genetic resistance to specific races of pasmo, so for example one gene may resist isolates one, two and six, but not five and seven, while another may resist five and seven but not nine. The challenge is to pyramid those genes to get better field resistance and make that material available to the breeding program,” says Dr. Khalid Rashid, the research scientist leading the flax pathology program at Morden.

Researchers also need to combine the pasmo resistance with the key agronomic requirements such as quality and yield, Rashid says, “so it’s complicated to combine all those traits that the breeders want in a cultivar before we can release it to the grower.”

Fungicide timing

In 2006, researchers at AAFC, Morden began a 10-year fungicide trial with 15 different fungicides. The trial has identified opportunities to reduce the pasmo disease incidence and severity by up to 70 per cent. Increases in yield varied from year to year depending on the severity of the pasmo, but fungicide-treated plots yielded in a range of 70 up to 350 per cent more than the non-treated plots.

The most effective fungicides in a descending order of effectiveness were: Priaxor, Xemium, Headline, Quadris, Fox325-Sc, Acapela, Prosaro and Vertisan.

Another three-year study headed by Cecil Vera at AAFC’s Saskatoon Research and Development Centre, in collaboration with Dr. Randy Kutcher of the University of Sask­atchewan’s Crop Development Centre (CDC), has been looking at the timing of fungicides to help control pasmo in flax. The study was conducted at sites in Saskatchewan and Alberta and used three different fungicides — Headline EC, Priaxor and Xemium. All fungicides reduced disease severity, but Priaxor was often the most effective. In terms of timing, application at the early flower stage was less effective than at mid-flower, and there was no difference in disease severity when fungicide was applied at the mid-flower stage or when a dual application was made at early and mid-flower stages.

When it came to yield, Priaxor and Headline had a similar benefit for yield, increasing it on average by 23 per cent more over the control and four per cent over Xemium. Both Priaxor and the dual fungicide application delayed maturity by five days, however, which could affect seed quality.

Researchers suspect the delay in maturity could be due to the effectiveness of the fungicide treatment because pasmo often results in premature ripening and earlier harvests. Seeding flax earlier might help offset delayed maturity.

Yield was increased by over 20 per cent with a single fungicide application (average of all three fungicides) at the mid-flower stage. There was no yield benefit to two applications (one at early flower and one at mid-flower) compared to the single application at mid-flower.

“I think two applications would rarely, if ever, be economically beneficial, based on current yields and prices for the fungicide and flax,” Kutcher says.

It’s still tricky to time the application of a fungicide for pasmo because the disease can often appear late in the season when it’s too late to spray. Researchers suggest farmers make that decision based on environmental conditions, their previous experience with pasmo, flax frequency in the rotation, and proximity to adjacent flax stubble.

More drought tolerance

Flax is a shallow-rooted crop and can be particularly susceptible to drought, with roots unable to reach and access moisture further down in the soil, but to date little research has been done into drought tolerance in flax.

Dr. Raju Datla, a research scientist at the National Research Council of Canada, is working with Helen Booker at the CDC to address this unmet critical need and identify flax genotypes that can better withstand drought conditions. By applying physiological and genomics tools, and looking at the genomic sequence of flax, his team has identified potential candidate genes that appear to be specifically expressed only under drought conditions.

Greenhouse research has also revealed that some tolerant flax genotypes appear to conserve moisture better during drought periods by reducing the amount of water transpired through the stomata on their leaves, which also collect carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. “We think the guard cells that regulate the stomata pores are responding to signals that there is a threat of drought coming, and the plant has to change its program in such a way that it loses less water and doesn’t expend all the moisture it has,” says Datla, who adds the next step is to incorporate the genetic components conferring drought tolerance into cultivars for field assessment and to develop improved Canadian flax cultivars.

Flax breeding

There used to be three flax breeding programs in Western Canada, including AAFC’s program at the Morden (Manitoba) Research and Development Centre, and the private Crop Production Services (formerly Viterra) program, but only one now remains at the University of Saskatchewan’s Crop Development Centre.

Dr. Helen Booker is the flax breeder at the CDC, where priorities for breeding obviously include increasing yield, but also a number of other agronomic traits important to growers, such as timely maturity and increasing ease of harvest.

“We are looking for things that are associated with better harvestability, like a more determinate flowering or growth habit so the plant shuts down at the end of the season and doesn’t keep flowering and diverting resources away from the maturing capsules,” says Booker. “We’re also looking at things like stem dry down, so the stems will be brown and dry at the same time the capsules are mature, rather than having a green stem.”

The CDC program has released several new varieties of flax over the past few years, most recently CDC Dorado, a yellow seed variety that has 64 per cent ALA (Omega-3 rich, alpha-linoleic acid) content, the highest ever ALA content in a CDC cultivar (it should be commercially available soon through SeedNet in Alberta).

Another new CDC line — FP2513 — has just received support for registration this year. This brown flax seed line has 59 per cent ALA content and a yield potential 12 per cent higher than CDC Bethune, the most commonly grown flax variety, and up to 17 per cent higher in black and grey soil zones.

The CDC breeding program is hoping to secure the germplasm and breeding material from the other defunct flax breeding programs, says Booker. “We built on each other’s successes within breeding programs, so getting access to the AAFC and the CPS material would be good to incorporate into the pipeline, so we can keep that good material in Canada.”

The future for flax

When GM traces of Triffid were found in export shipments to the European Union (EU) in 2009, the flax industry in Canada all but collapsed. Acres went down and other countries like Russia and Kazakhstan grew more to serve that market.

Still, China has grown significantly over the past four or five years, and all indications are that it will continue to be a strong market for Canadian flax.

The U.S. is another major flax grower and thanks to a very large crop in 2015, it’s had large carryover stocks, which has depressed Canadian exports into that market over the past two years. With drought in the northern U.S. this year, however, there may be some opportunities for Canadian flax exports to increase.

“I believe we are in the process of a rebound in flax markets and prices this year, partly because of the dry weather in Western Canada and the U.S.,” says Chuck Penner of LeftField Commodity Research in Winnipeg. “What’s unknown is the potential for growth in the domestic market, both for human use and Omega-3 animal feed, because no one has ever measured how much flax is going into those markets in Canada.”

What is known is that demand for flax as a functional food continues to grow worldwide, and Manitoba and Saskatchewan have companies in that race.

“We can see great potential for flax,” says Evans. “We have a growing middle class in many countries of the world and that growing middle class suffers from all the same middle class problems that we have in North America with obesity, and hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases. If we can continue to work and develop markets in those areas, I think that will be an advantage to us down the line.”

The post Flax opportunities appeared first on Country Guide.

Some IWM methods are easy to implement, such as making sure you select good, certified seed that will grow vigorously and out-compete weeds. Seeding at a higher rate than normal is another surefire way of suppressing weeds. Having a better crop rotation doesn’t encourage the same weeds to grow every year and proliferate.

“Those are some of the real basics, but when you combine them, and you do enough of those little things, you won’t have to use herbicides so often,” says Neil Harker, weed ecology and crop management research scientist with AAFC’s Research and Development Centre at Lacombe, Alberta.

Weed resistance driving IWM

Increasing weed resistance problems across Canada and other areas of the world are driving more and more farmers to look at IWM. “If we can find ways to use herbicides less often, we put less selection pressure on weeds for resistance,” says Harker. “Integrated weed management is being driven right now by producers’ desire to avoid, or restrict weed resistance.”

Early seeding, if possible, is another useful tool to try and get a jump on some weeds. “Early seeding will give you a relative time of emergence advantage and that’s huge on weeds,” says Harker. “For weeds that don’t come up that early, if the crop can get a couple of weeks ahead of them, the herbicides will work much better because they don’t need to be as active. And the crop has much less yield loss, so there’s less need for herbicide.”

But seeding the same crops early every year isn’t necessarily beneficial, adds Harker. “If we did all early seeding on all our crops year after year on our fields, we would select for weeds that emerged earlier than the crop or we’d select for weeds that came up much later and could still proliferate,” he says.

Aim for diverse rotations

It’s better to have a crop rotation that encourages different seeding dates, such as fall seeding winter cereals such as winter wheat, winter triticale or fall rye. “When you do that, you don’t even need a wild oat herbicide because the crop is so far ahead of the wild oat in the spring,” says Harker.

Winter cereals, particularly fall rye, are competitive with wild oats because they emerge long before wild oats, but winter cereals should not be grown continuously or winter annual weeds like downy brome can become a problem. The key message is that a diverse crop rotation is more effective to control weeds than a less diverse rotation of annual crops.

One of the biggest impediments to IWM is crop prices. “Everybody wants to grow the most profitable crop each year so they’ll stick with more simple rotations. It’s no surprise that because we grow summer-annual crops year-after-year that our biggest weed problems for the last 40 years are summer-annual weeds such as wild oats, wild buckwheat, and green foxtail,” says Harker.

If farmers include a perennial forage such as alfalfa in the rotation, it can dramatically reduce weed pressure. “Perennial forages allow us all kinds of different methods for suppressing weeds and reducing weed seed production,” says Harker.

Field surveys (just before spraying) from Manitoba and Saskatchewan found the average weed density in cereal crops following cereal crops was 106 plants/m2. The average weed density in cereal crops following alfalfa was only 48 plants/m2. As well, problem weeds such as wild oats, Canada thistle, wild mustard and cleavers were significantly lower in cereal fields preceded by alfalfa. However, populations of weeds such as stinkweed and dandelion can increase by having alfalfa in rotation. Research has shown that an optimum rotation should include three years of alfalfa followed by three years of annual cropping. The benefits of weed suppression and added nitrogen from this rotation begin to decline after the alfalfa stand is three-years-old. Alfalfa is best removed in fall with a herbicide application as tillage can dry out soils and affect yields of the following annual crop and stimulate annual weeds to germinate.

Fertilizer management is another crucial factor in IWM. Broadcasting fertilizer feeds weeds as much as the crop, and too much fertilizer in the seed row can damage the crop’s ability to compete. “That can happen if you are seeding too fast or have worn openers or are just being careless,” says Harker. “Fertilizer is really important, because when you feed the crop properly, and place it correctly, you can give it an advantage over weeds.”

Limiting the spread of weeds

Research is underway all over the world into physical weed control methods, especially in Australia where they are looking at harvest weed seed control by collecting or baling chaff, or crushing weed seeds with the Harrington Seed Destructor.

An inexpensive and simple weed control method is limiting their spread from field to field and there are many things producers can do to accomplish this. They can ensure that equipment such as combines are clean before moving to the next field, use a chaff wagon to collect weed seeds, and tarp grain loads to prevent weed seeds from blowing out during transport. Producers can control weeds such as Canada thistle and scentless chamomile in ditches, field edges and around sloughs, and compost manure for at least a year before using on fields to reduce the viability of many weed seeds. Monitoring fields carefully may allow for spot spraying of new weeds before they become too established.

A new project at AAFC in Lacombe is using a CombCut to cut weeds before they can set seed. “I believe that producers should remain open minded to some of these new ideas,” says Harker. “Before they weren’t interested because they were happy with herbicides, but they’re less happy now.”

IWM strategies that work

These strategies are listed with thanks to Alberta Agriculture and Forestry:

1. Early seeding: Seeding as early as possible has a number of advantages. It can help prevent weeds from getting a head start on the crop. Research shows that yield loss in barley can vary from 17 per cent when wild oats emerge five days before the crop to only three per cent when wild oats emerge five days after the crop. Early seeded crops can take advantage of spring moisture and longer growing days to provide a yield advantage. Early seeding canola results in less flower blasting because the crop flowers before the hottest part of the summer. Delaying seeding to control initial flushes of weeds can result in yield loss that exceeds the cost of applying an in-crop herbicide.

2. Seed shallow: Seed as shallow as possible for quicker emergence. Seeding deep, especially into cool soils can delay emergence, and make seedlings more susceptible to disease and herbicide damage. Under good moisture conditions, seed canola and cereals no deeper than half an inch and one inch, respectively. In dry soils, seed canola and cereals at one and two inches, respectively.

3. Pack the seed row: Pack the seed row well after drilling in the seed to retain more soil moisture for crop germination. Soil between the seeded rows remains looser and drier, and is not ideal for weeds to germinate.

4. Watch row spacing: Wider row spacing, beyond 12 inches, can reduce crop emergence and competitiveness with weeds due to inter-plant competition.

5. Seed at higher rates: Generally a higher seeding rate will help crops outcompete weeds and increase yield. Studies have shown that increasing the recommended seeding rate by 50 per cent reduced weed biomass in three of four years in wheat, canola and barley and in two of four years in peas. Yields also increased in two of four years in canola, barley and peas and in one year in wheat.

6. Maintain fertility: When increasing seeding rates, fertility must be maintained to produce higher yields. In studies, increasing the seeding rate of barley only gave higher yields when fertility was adequate, and actually resulted in decreased yields when fertility was too low.

7. Choose good seed: Plant vigorous seed to help produce a competitive crop, particularly when conditions for germination and seedling growth are less than ideal such as in cold, dry soils or when there is disease or insect pressure. Test seed for both germination and vigor prior to seeding to assess how quickly and uniformly the seed will germinate under stressful conditions.

8. Diversify crop rotations: Production systems that create diversity in cropping patterns, tillage and herbicide use make it difficult for weeds to adapt. Rotating between annual grain crops such as field peas, canola and spring cereals provides an opportunity to rotate between herbicide groups, thereby slowing the development of weed resistance. Unfortunately herbicide resistance is increasingly becoming an issue for farmers as weeds adapt, particularly in less diverse, annual crop rotations. Diversifying rotations by including annual crops, perennial forages, winter cereals and silage crops creates variation in cropping patterns such as seeding and harvest dates, and makes it hard for weeds to adapt.

9. Use herbicides optimally: IWM can create an opportunity to reduce herbicide use, but herbicides are still a powerful weed management tool and producers should generally use the recommended label rates. It may be possible to avoid a herbicide application if weeds do not reach economic thresholds. The economic weed threshold is the weed density at which the cost of control is equal to the value of the crop yield lost from weed competition.

For example, say a 60 bu./ac. barley crop is worth $2.50/bu, and the cost of applying a herbicide to control wild oats is $16/ac. Based on the crop and application prices, the farmer can afford to lose 6.4 bu./ac. (a 10.6 per cent yield loss) before the application of the herbicide would be cost effective.

For more detailed information about IWM practices visit Alberta Agriculture and Forestry’s website.

This article was originally published in the June 7, 2016, issue of Grainews.

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Unfortunately, what we get on one hand, we can lose with the other, and the yield losses where weeds, diseases and pests aren’t controlled are climbing too.

But perhaps most expensive is a less intensive approach to soybean management on some farms, and a “just enough” mindset that is holding us back, and that is also paving the way for problems with nematodes, white mould and herbicide-resistant weeds.

Get that extra 15 per cent

It’s in the face of all of these factors that Eric Richter, a sales agronomist with Syngenta, is doing all he can to change the focus on soybean production, and to apply a more intensive management outlook. (See October 2015 Soybean Guide for our story with Richter on the factors limiting soybean yield potential.)

Now, Richter is focused on building a “whole-systems” approach to soybean production, and the 2015 growing season provided extra incentive with opportunities to see the benefits of a more intensive management system. For instance, soy yield broke the 90 bu./ac. mark in one high-yield management plot that Richter supervised at the company’s fields north of London. In 2014, using the same system and the same protocols and treatments, that plot yielded 75 bu./ac.

Richter’s goal there is to crack 100 bu./ac., and he’s hoping that 2016 will be the year when things “start to get interesting.”

The primary focus for Richter is to exploit ways of making a variety’s genetics and the field’s environment work together.

Getting that “G x E” paradigm right, Richter says, can add 15 per cent to yield.

“We need to continue to drive home the point of ‘genetics by environment,’ and how important it is for a grower to understand which variety they’re choosing and why, and what portfolio they’re going to use,” says Richter. He holds to the idea that growers can’t hear about this enough, and that understanding it includes a thorough plan with different contingencies. “I call it ‘the heat of the battle’, where in the spring planting rush, a lot of times, ‘Plan A’ gets tossed and we go to ‘Plan B’ and then we go to ‘C.’ But at least we have those three contingencies, and there’s lots of room to move that bar and improve the system by positioning varieties.”

Soil type, productivity potential and soil health need to dovetail, Richter maintains, and he says, new research is showing more ways to make that happen. For instance, he says, a perfect example is “planting depth by date” and the impact it has on stand establishment.

“Planting depth by date doesn’t get talked about very much,” Richter says, adding that a lot of growers don’t always consider the impact of the two. “If you’re planting beans on April 25th at two-and-a-half inches deep — anything deeper than two inches — and not looking at soil temperatures, as a grower, you need to look at what you’re doing. The soil temperature gradient on April 25th or May 1st is radically different than what it would be on May 25th, and soybeans still like warm soil, warmer than what we require for corn.”

Farmers can plant early, and there is still a significant impact of soil temperature and its potential effect on soybean germination and emergence. Richter points to the response to temperatures among different varieties: some have a better ability to germinate and emerge under cooler conditions. Seed quality is another, yet he believes planting depth and soil temperature — effectively “planting depth by date” — is the key.

Another pillar in Richter’s approach is the significant response in both corn and soybeans to early planting and additional yield. But the two responses are different.

“What I want to do is get growers to manage their soybeans with the same intensity and level of detail as they do their corn crop,” Richter says. “There were thousands of acres of soybeans this past year that didn’t get sprayed for aphids that definitely would have put big dollars in the grower’s pocket. But in corn, that wouldn’t have happened; growers were out there and doing corrective measures and adjusting their management system, applying products to eliminate problems.”

Case in point was a test plot of soybeans on a low organic sand. With a more intensive management regimen, Richter was able to generate a nine-bushel response with 80 units of nitrogen applied in-crop. That was a $2 return for a $1 investment. Yet on this farm, the farmer experienced significant aphid pressure but didn’t spray it. So the impact of the nitrogen application could have been much higher.

Emergence is critical

Next comes emergence, and it’s here that Richter would like to see a change in the indifference that growers may exhibit towards their soybean crops.

“We talk about soybeans and how they can compensate, and I challenge that: if you are happy as a grower with 45- to 55-bushel beans, don’t worry about stand establishment,” he says. “If you’re happy with 45 to 55 and you have adequate stands, that’s where you’ll be and that’s probably where you’ll stay.”

To move consistently beyond 55 bushels and into 60- and 70-bushel levels, however, agronomists, researchers and advisers need to do more to help growers do a better job of stand establishment.

“The other area around stand establishment that I find very intriguing is the gap between what is seeded and the final stand,” says Richter, noting it is another area where corn growers are quick to act, while soybean growers are somewhat lax. “In corn, if that gap is any larger than 10 per cent, the grower is likely right on that, trying to figure out what’s happened and how to solve it. But in soybeans, many fields are still between 20 and 30 per cent difference between what was seeded and the final counts on emergence.”

Within his Elite Soybean Grower Group, Richter has been working on closing that gap, and he has several of the growers who have shaved it to 10 per cent. That means it’s an achievable goal, and one key step towards moving yields higher.

More yield winners

The fourth and fifth factors that Richter adds are rotation and tillage, although both fit into more of a seasonal management perspective.

If there’s one other aspect of intensive soybean production that Richter believes needs improvement, it’s in the potential for pests and diseases to drastically reduce yields. What’s particularly frustrating is that most of the answers that apply to solving puzzles with stand establishment or plant populations apply equally to pests and diseases. Farmers can get more by scouting, identifying the issues and solving them accordingly.

In the past three growing seasons, white mould has become an increasing issue in Eastern Canada. For regions of eastern Ontario and western Quebec, it has all but established itself as an annual challenge. Soybean cyst nematode (SCN) is the other, recently discovered at very high frequencies and infection rates in parts of Huron, Bruce and Grey counties. And the same scenario is occurring with soybean aphids.

Richter again refers to some of the work he’s done with the company’s Elite Soybean Grower Group. First, there’s the need to identify the challenges, and something like white mould is very specific — and evident. The second step may be the hardest, says Richter, which is to accepting that it actually is a problem. Many growers are embarrassed to find they have SCN or white mould, or that aphids have landed in their fields, and they may not be aware of the yield loss potential, either before or after the disease (or pest) sets in. But it all can happen quickly, and often, by the time growers realize there’s a problem, it’s too far gone to fix it.

“We have to pre-empt this. We have to plan ahead, recognize that we are at risk, identify that we have the problem, assess that risk and then build a plan,” says Richter, explaining how to deal with white mould as an example. “Genetics first, meaning a highly tolerant variety. Then, what are the cultural practices you’re going to undertake to mitigate the risk and not create an environment that is favourable to white mould? And what are treatments that you’re going to do in crop?”

Once again, it’s that whole-systems approach — from weed management to soil health to fertility to pest and disease management, says Richter. “We still have a huge opportunity.”

The post Getting that extra 15 per cent from your soybean yields appeared first on Country Guide.

The concept certainly has merit, says Dr. Peter Sikkema, professor of weed science with the University of Guelph’s Ridgetown Campus.

Sikkema doubts many farmers actually have a five-year plan in place. It’s more likely their management plan rides along with their crop rotation, so if they’ve got a three-year rotation, they’ve effectively got a three-year weed management plan.

“You want to have a multi-year plan,” agrees Sikkema. “And there has to be flexibility in the system to adjust to current market conditions or other things that may impact that plan. But that doesn’t in any way negate the value of having a multi-year plan, and then being flexible and responsive as situations arise.”

Peter Johnson is also an advocate of long-term planning, although he takes it from a slightly different vantage point — with weed management falling in line with both crop plans and soil fertility plans, which should have a three-year frequency as well. It doesn’t make sense to apply fertilizer every year, he says, but to keep it routine as part of a three- or four- or five-year rotation — to suit the cropping plan — makes more sense. The same is true with weed management plans.

“A lot of growers are getting better at having that long-term plan, and glyphosate-resistant fleabane is pushing us again to make a longer-term plan,” says Johnson, now an independent agronomist. “Horse-tail forced me to have a long-term plan: I had field horsetail very bad in one field and I had wild carrot in another field that was very bad. So you come up with that three-year plan or whatever time frame that suits your cropping sequence, but you come up with that plan for the weed spectrum you have.”

The not-so-new reality of weed management in Eastern Canada is the rapid advance of Canada fleabane, common ragweed, giant ragweed and now waterhemp, all of which are resistant to eithr glyphosate or multiple modes of action.

The good news from Sikkema’s perspective is that although a species such as Canada fleabane can provide so many challenges, it is still manageable without relying on or abusing glyphosate. In a very brief sketch of a three-year crop plan, Sikkema confirmed it’s possible to use nine different modes of action in a three-year rotation, with none of them used twice.

In Sikkema’s model, managing Canada fleabane in Year One in corn would call for Frontier Marksman, made up of Group 15, 4 and 5 chemistries. In Year Two, a grower could use Optill in soybeans — a Group 14 and 2. And in the third year, the choice could be Infinity in wheat — with Group 27 and 6 chemistries. Glyphosate could be used as a cleanup — so that’s a Group 9. And just to keep weeds a bit more off balance, there’d be the option of using Roundup Ready corn or going with a Liberty Link hybrid, which opens the door to a Group 10.

Sikkema says such a lineup isn’t meant to show an ideal system, but it does demonstrate what’s possible.

“With a long-term plan such as that, you could have near-perfect control of glyphosate-resistant Canada fleabane, and that’s the driver weed in terms of glyphosate resistance in Ontario,” Sikkema says.

Of course, in a climate of low commodity prices, higher operating costs and the uncertainties at planting, there is the reality that farmers are governed by short-term economics and simplicity. And in recent years, the most profitable way to grow corn or soybeans has been to rely on Roundup Ready technology, despite the possibility of overrelying on glyphosate. Unfortunately, the results have been all too predictable.

“It’s not ‘if’ we get resistance to whatever herbicide we use, it’s ‘when,’” reminds Johnson, adding that there were some who originally said resistance would never develop in glyphosate, because of the way the molecule worked. “For any of us to think that can be true is pretty naive: all species want to survive and all species will find ways around whatever technology we throw at them.”

Besides, Sikkema says that the thinking behind his outline for the possibilities against fleabane also work on other weed challenges.

In other words, he says, mapping out a long-term weed management strategy and avoiding an overuse of glyphosate, to effectively manage weeds — including resistant species — is possible.

“Having been at this game for over 20 years now, it absolutely amazes me how rapidly a weed like glyphosate-resistant Canada fleabane came on the scene, how quickly it moved across the province and the density that we’re seeing in some fields,” Sikkema says.

Now, the same may be taking shape with glyphosate-resistant waterhemp. Sikkema is equally amazed with its density in some fields. It was confirmed late in 2014 in southwestern Lambton County and is now known to be flourishing in many other fields nearby. Late-season samples have been collected and will be analyzed during the winter.

In 2013, Ford Baldwin, a weed extension specialist from Arkansas, was at Bayer CropScience’s Rockwood Research Farm, to discuss the advance and overwhelming nature of Palmer amaranth. The weed made headlines in the mid-south region of the U.S. in 2010 for its spread and resistance to glyphosate, and was confirmed as far north as Illinois, Indiana and Michigan by 2013. Baldwin warned that as powerful a tool as glyphosate was, and as great a potential as Roundup Ready Xtend and Dow’s Enlist technologies offer, the ease with which growers adopted these technologies could be distressing. Glyphosate was a one-in-100-year discovery, he said, and after growers abuse Xtend and the Enlist systems, there’ll be nothing left. That has as much to do with the fact that there are few new herbicides in development, and haven’t been for more than 20 years.

We’re still a long ways from that scenario, yet Sikkema agrees there is reason for concern. There is a lot of upside in terms of weed management options in using dicamba in the Roundup Ready Xtend system or 2,4-D in Enlist corn (and pending soybeans).

“The challenge is, will farmers rely too much on the Group 4 chemistries (dicamba and 2,4-D)?” asks Sikkema. “If we get Roundup Ready Xtend or Enlist, they will be useful tools, and I think they’ll help farmers manage glyphosate-resistant weeds. But the concern is, will farmers overuse the technology?”

Yet despite the fact the pipeline of new herbicides is so empty, and amid concerns about the use of Xtend and Enlist technologies, all is not lost, says Johnson. Maybe there isn’t a “new glyphosate,” but the research cupboard is far from bare, a notion with which Sikkema also agrees. Where the herbicide door may be closed or even locked, there are windows of opportunity being raised, if not built and then opened.

“I think that technology will develop and could well be an RNAi technology,” says Johnson, referring to the ribonucleic acid interference pathway, now being researched by a variety of sources.

There are also studies into robotic methods of weed removal and the potential for biologicals or microbial biotech applications that hold a great deal of promise for a variety of uses, some including weed management. It may be slower than a chemical application, and its cost effectiveness is not yet to the point where commercial availability is feasible. But they are being developed.

“Having said that,” Johnson summarizes, “if we don’t manage everything we can to maintain the technology we have now for as long as possible, we deserve what we get.”

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Earlier this summer, a smartphone app was launched called Pest Manager. Currently, only information on weeds and weed management is included, so I tell farmers it’s what you would get if a weed identification book and the Guide to Weed Control had a child who grew up to be really into gadgets and technology.

Disease and insect information will be added this fall.

Pests can be searched by name or through the use of a key. Any pest can be added to a user’s list of frequently encountered pests. With the maps feature, pests can also be added to a geographic location.

Management options can be searched for in corn, soybeans and cereals. These options are currently only pesticide related. Integrated pest management options will be added in future versions.

Pesticide options are ranked by their average control of all pests selected. When a pesticide treatment is selected, a number of fields will be displayed with information for the appropriate use of the pesticide. If a user wants to look up information on a specific pesticide, they can do so in the pesticide information section.

Probably the easiest way to download this app is to do a Google search for “pest manager app.” Currently this app is only available for Apple (iOS) devices (iPad, iPhone, iPod touch) but an Android version is in the works and will be released this year.

If you have any constructive feedback, please let me know.

This app is only applicable for Ontario and does not replace a pesticide label. It is the user’s responsibility when using a pesticide to ensure that all directions on the label are followed.

This app is a co-operative effort between OMAFRA and the Grain Farmers of Ontario. Funding was provided through the Growing Forward 2 program, a partnership between Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

Have a question you want answered? Hashtag #PestPatrol on Twitter to @cowbrough or email Mike.

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Phacelia is a member of the waterleaf (Hydrophyllaceae) family. Unlike oilseed radish, its taproot is not as robust, so it’s not an ideal candidate for breaking through a compacted plow-pan. Instead, it produces a diffuse mass of fine roots near the soil surface that helps bind soil aggregates even after the plant begins to break down with winter.

Friedhelm Hoffmann, the general operating manager at Exeter Produce in Exeter, Ont., is very familiar with phacelia. Before he came to Canada 16 years ago, he grew it as a cover crop in Germany. To his knowledge, phacelia has been used as a cover crop in Europe for at least 40 years. In 2013, he grew a trial plot and in 2014, he planted the first field-scale test of the cover crop in Ontario.

In the past, Exeter Produce would plant oats as a cover, but lately they’ve been trying different cropping options, and from Hoffmann’s perspective the important thing is to grow “something” after the vegetable crops. He wants another crop to protect the soil surface and to keep nutrients cycling.

“I know that phacelia is a good cover crop because it takes up a lot of nitrate,” Hoffmann says. “The questionable part is when it releases it. It takes up a lot more nitrogen than oats, up to 90 lbs. of N per acre, depending on the situation.”

Secondary benefit

To anyone touring Hoffmann’s field-scale trial, another benefit was obvious. Bees love phacelia too.

The controversy over neonicotinoid seed treatments and their potential effect on bee health has agriculture looking for good news relating to bees, and phacelia provides that.

“It flowers at a time when there aren’t a lot of blossoms available,” says Hoffmann. “It’s a very bee-friendly flower, and it flowers for a long time.”

Anne Verhallen likes phacelia for all the same reasons Hoffmann does. “The timing for it would be right because it doesn’t do well in the heat,” says Verhallen, the soil specialist for horticultural crops with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA). “And I don’t know for sure because I haven’t done the research on it but I’m thinking it will need a bit of nitrogen or manure or something to get the most growth out of it.”

That may be another management component to watch for with phacelia. Wheat yields in the past five to 10 years have advanced and there isn’t a lot of residual nitrogen left behind, as was evident from the yellowed radish fields this past fall. Because of that, growers may need a supplementary nitrogen application to give the phacelia crop a boost.

But another intriguing benefit of phacelia may be as a fall weed control tool. Specialists such as Peter Johnson and Mike Cowbrough of OMAFRA and researchers Dr. Peter Sikkema of University of Guelph see a growing need to adopt a fall weed management program.

Verhallen believes phacelia may help. It may suppress weeds better than a fall burn-down with its late-season canopy, she points out. Planting a cover crop in late summer that provides late-fall weed suppression would also reduce the complaint that fall is already a busy season, and that time for weed management practices is limited.

“It’s just as good if not better than a fall herbicide program,” says Verhallen. “There are fringe benefits from a cover crop: the fall herbicide program kills everything there, and then it stops. But the cover crop keeps giving all season.”

There are potential drawbacks to phacelia, because seed costs are high and availability is limited. Both Hoffmann and Verhallen believe however, that those will be only short-term issues.

The post A cover crop that buzzes appeared first on Country Guide.

Jason Norsworthy, weed scientist at the University of Arkansas, knows where we’re heading. Arkansas is among the most severely affected states with crop rotations that often include Roundup Ready cotton, Roundup Ready soybeans and Roundup Ready corn, creating intense selection pressure for glyphosate-resistant weeds.

“Glyphosate is now completely lost for much of the southern U.S.,” Norsworthy says.

Today, only about 15 per cent of the cotton is Roundup Ready, down from nearly 100 per cent.

Growers have adapted, but at a price. “We have a really clean crop this year,” Norsworthy says. “But weed management costs have basically tripled.”

Growers use various pre-seed products to make sure the field is completely clean before seeding, and then use soil-applied residual herbicides in crop. Cotton, for example, often gets seven in-crop applications per season. Growers then hire hand-weeders to get any escapes.

The most threatening glyphosate-resistant weed by far is Palmer amaranth, which Norsworthy calls “redroot pigweed on steroids.” Literally billions of Palmer amaranth plants will emerge per acre, with emergence continuing all season long. The weeds can grow six to seven feet tall, and each plant can produce up to 1.5 million seeds. Even if soil-applied herbicides are 99 per cent effective, those escapes can quickly rebuild the seed bank.

“In Arkansas alone, we had at least 750,000 acres hand-weeded this year, and it would have been much higher if we had the labour to do it,” says Norsworthy.

Why Arkansas matters here

The fact that a single weed is causing so much trouble in Arkansas is an important message to growers in Western Canada. North America has at least 15 glyphosate-resistant weeds, but just one is enough to upset the balance. One glyphosate-resistant weed — kochia — is now confirmed in all three Prairie provinces, and for growers with a kochia problem, this is a serious concern.

The second important message from the southern U.S. experience is that no new herbicide has come along to rescue the situation. This is a huge market opportunity for crop protection companies to extract premium value for a new mode of action. “Yet there is absolutely no new mode of action in the pipeline,” Norsworthy says. So Arkansas growers are back to 50-year-old products like 2,4-D and dicamba (although weed resistance to dicamba is showing up), and they have drastically stepped up their tillage too.

The third important message from the U.S. experience is that herbicide-resistant weeds don’t have to develop on your farm to become a problem. Resistant weeds are on the move. Glyphosate-resistant Palmer amaranth was first discovered in Georgia — which makes sense given the selection pressure of the typical southern crop rotation and that Palmer amaranth is a heat-loving weed suited to Georgia’s arid conditions, Norsworthy says. “However, it is now found in 28 states, including northern states of Michigan, Wisconsin and possibly Minnesota.”

Weed seeds spread far and wide in custom combines, to give one example. Cotton hulls — and weed seeds in the dockage — are also trucked around the U.S. for dairy feed. Dairy cow manure spread on fields is a simple way to introduce seeds from resistant weeds. Then there’s the more natural method — wind — that blows seeds and seed-shedding plants all over the place. Think tumbling kochia and its 30,000 seeds per plant.

The Prairie situation

Hugh Beckie, weed scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Saskatoon, has been tracking herbicide-resistant weeds for the past 15 to 20 years. He is in the middle of another two-year survey of Saskatchewan. In the early 2000s, Beckie estimated the number of Prairie acres with at least one species of herbicide-resistant weed at 10.9 million. By end of that decade, Beckie’s estimate had increased to 24.4 million.

This year, Beckie revised the total to 38.0 million. The population of resistant weeds within those acres has likely also increased significantly.

Group 1-resistant wild oats are the most common. As of 2009, an estimated nine million acres were infested with Group 1-resistant wild oats. Wild oats have been found with resistance to Group 2 and Group 8 herbicides as well. More than 300,000 acres have wild oat plants with resistance to all three of these groups. Group 1-resistant green foxtail is widespread, as are many Group 2-resistant broadleaf weeds, including cleavers and kochia. In fact, weed management specialists assume that most kochia is Group 2 resistant. Glyphosate resistance is an add-on feature.

Beckie estimates the cost of herbicide-resistant weeds at $1.1 billion to $1.5 billion per year on the Prairies. The cost is from a combination of related factors, according to grower surveys. These include added herbicide cost due to increased tank mixing required, added overall weed management (cost of tillage or crop rotation, for example) and lost yield due to increased weed competition.

So what do we do?

Gregory Sekulic is an agronomy specialist with the Canola Council of Canada and he spends a lot of time thinking ahead about sustainability challenges to canola production on the Prairies.

“With resistant weeds, the first step is to think about weed management as a whole,” Sekulic says. “Herbicides alone are not the solution.

“Herbicide-resistant canola has saved growers a lot of time and effort when it comes to weed management, but we are at risk of losing that tool,” Sekulic says. “Best practices for weed management need to be applied to save these tools for the long term.”

This includes immediate action and long-term prevention. Scout for escapes and suspicious patches and then act quickly to contain them. Cut those patches before the weeds set seed — use a mower or perhaps take that part of the crop for silage — or spot spray with a different mode of action.

To reduce the selection pressure for resistant weeds, look at rotating herbicide-tolerant canola systems, especially if you’re in a two-year canola rotation, Sekulic says. Use product tank mixes in the pre-seed, in-crop and harvest windows. And take steps that increase efficacy — such as hitting weeds when they’re small, when they’re actively growing, and at label rates and water volumes.

Then adopt practices that aren’t just about herbicides, Sekulic adds. Winter cereals are a great rotation crop because they’re highly competitive and provide this competition at different times of the year (i.e. fall and early spring) than spring-seeded crops. Also winter cereals are harvested earlier, which means many weeds are cut off before they set seed.

Perennial alfalfa and clover are dynamite. Neil Harker led a five-year study, concluding in 2014, into integrated crop management systems for wild oats. He found that three years of alfalfa took wild oat populations down to almost nothing with no herbicides required after the crop was established. “What we need to do better,” Harker says, “is to apply economics to these rotations to see how they can work into a grower’s profitability objectives.” He concedes that with the move away from mixed farms, these crops don’t seem to make economic sense for all growers. He’d like to have numbers to show how these crops could work into an integrated long-term approach to weed management, especially on fields where resistant weeds are at critical numbers and the higher investment required for herbicides has changed the economic picture.

Sekulic would much prefer growers look at rotation and diversity before tillage. “I don’t see a widespread return to tillage as the solution,” he says.

Norsworthy encourages growers to get in front of the issue. He gives the example of one Arkansas grower who noticed a few Palmer amaranth escapes back in 2004. Numbers were low — about one escape per acre — but the grower still felt it worthwhile to pay $2 to $3 per acre to have people walk fields and hand-pull these escapes. As a result, he kept his soil’s seed bank of Palmer amaranth very low. Now, while neighbours pay $150 per acre for hand-weeding, his costs are more reasonable and his profits are healthier, Norsworthy says. “He still has Palmer amaranth, but he can still effectively control it with glyphosate and his hand-weeding costs are only $4 to $5 per acre.”

Arkansas is researching harvest strategies, including weed mills that destroy seeds that pass through the combine, and windrow burning. These tools will reduce the seed bank and reduce selection pressure on herbicides. Communities have also taken on the job of managing weed escapes near ditches, creeks and bridges.

Necessity has forced them. “We’ve had folks go bankrupt over herbicide-resistant weeds,” Norsworthy says.

That said, it’s not a complete writeoff. “I’m seeing the cleanest crops I’ve seen in seven or eight years, and soybeans achieved a state record for yield last year,” Norsworthy says. “But every acre will have glyphosate-resistant Palmer amaranth, and every grower wishes he had been proactive to prevent this problem in the first place.”

Jay Whetter is a communications manager with the Canola Council of Canada. For more on Neil Harker’s wild oat study, read study 6.1 in the Canola Digest. For much more on herbicide-resistant weeds around the world, visit weedscience.com.

This article was originally published as “Our biggest risk” in the November 2014 issue of Country Guide.

ID problem weeds early

The photo above shows bands of glyphosate-resistant kochia in a field. Mature resistant plants had tumbled through, shedding seed along the way. The following season all other kochia plants were controlled by an application of glyphosate, but not these ones. This is a clear sign of resistance. Any weed patches that should have been controlled by a herbicide, but were not, suggest a potential resistance situation. Live weeds beside dead weeds of the same species is another indicator. Early detection followed by spot spraying or even hand-weeding will keep these resistant patches contained. Labs in Western Canada can test weeds for resistance if you want to be sure. A list of them can be found at canolawatch.org.

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