Tramlining to control weeds
Chaff tramlining in controlled traffic systems
A COUPLE of my AHRI colleagues in Greg and Kirrily Condon from near Wagga have been advocating and evaluating the different techniques of Harvest Weed Seed Control.
They have the king of herbicide resistant weeds in annual ryegrass in these southern areas.
We have our own emerging weed problems in this northern region, however there are plenty of good reasons to learn from our southern cousins with their herbicide resistant weeds.
So one way in the Harvest Weed Seed Control solution basket being utilised down south, is with a non-herbicide weed management system called chaff tramlining system.
Chaff tramlining is the practice of concentrating the weed seeds in the chaff fraction from the rear of the header, onto your wheel tracks or tramlines in controlled traffic systems (CTF) and not spread all over the paddock.
These wheel track zones with all the header pin trash and any weed seeds in this material, then have a very hostile environment for a successful germination over your future Fallow time.
Yes, it is difficult to say you are going to get 100 per cent control on these concentrated wheel track avenues of pin trash and weed seed, however anecdotal evidence from southern and western cousins suggest a 60 per cent reduction in weed levels in the paddock over a few years.
Now the first thing you are going to throw at me is that all your weeds will drop their mature seeds on the ground.
That is what I first assumed as well, after learning about these alternate non-herbicide weed control measures.
After viewing thousands of paddocks over the years in the pre-harvest stage, to be fair I did not count plants with their mature seed heads still attached.
I was surprised after paying more attention to this stage of crops, how many weed plants in our ripening crops have retained there weed seed numbers in the head.
Not all of course and plants like barnyard grass and Urochloa can be very prostrate and grow close to the soil surface.
Black oats is a real sook and can drop seeds very quickly in our springtime pre-harvest time and will only be a HWSC proposition in some years.
However this above chaff tramlining system with low cost rear elevators attached to the rear of the header can be a permanent improvement on your header.
So in future harvesting operations, you will always be implementing some non-herbicide weed control when driving your header in any crop be it cereal, oilseed or a pulse crop.
So I believe this low cost option for using a non-herbicide means of weed control is a very helpful in our war against herbicide resistant weeds, as well as the plain hard to kill ones.
So, an invitation from me to attend a dedicated Weedsmart week at Narrabri starting on August 20.
You will get to listen to agronomists and farmers on all their ideas and actions into controlling weeds and actually do some farm tours on August 21 and 22 in that large northern cropping area.
While it is dry, a strong suggestion is to attend to learn to dominate the plethora of weeds that will germinate when our rainfall patterns change.