Leave no survivors after rain
WELL, some of us have had rain and for once it was a significant amount to maybe provide some relief for the late summer crops and possibly even establish some level of moisture in the profile.
The other result is there will be some planting of fodder crops in various areas.
One thing you can bet on is the germination of weeds.
There will be all types of these plants-out-of-place emerging through the surface, depending on how wet your soil surface becomes.
One thing about weeds is they appear to predict the weather better than we do and they appear to just know that germinating on a small fall of rain may not get their full life cycle completed, before the dry sets in again, so they do not emerge.
Looking at the feather top rhodes photos with this article – the time taken to get from the seedling to the physiological maturity stage can be flexible, from 60-odd days to four months.
Meanwhile, what are some of the decisions you will be considering in the next few days or weeks?
One thing is not to let the weeds get away on you.
If herbicide is your choice of a control method, make sure there are no survivors from a single-pass operation or the double-knock system.
Why do I belt on about this “ensure no survivors” business in weed control?
It’s not because it makes the paddock look cosmetically messy, it’s because that one plant may be the one that is resistant to those particular applied herbicide molecules.
It may be the one plant that has this natural method of achieving survival after your boom spray has been over it.
Of course, all its mature seed will have that level of survival also, so if a barnyard grass plant survives this spray event with an inherent resistance capability, it could produce another 20,000-odd seeds that will be resistant also.
Of course this inherited herbicide resistance level in your survivor plant may make the weed naturally weaker (fitness principle) and more subject to other inhibiting growth stresses and reduced seed production.
However the many different species in the world showing herbicide resistance and possibly a fitness penalty, have different means of combating these environmental conditions to ensure long-term species survival.
So having survivors from a herbicide application due to a poor spraying situation by lack of moisture and/or heat stress was and still is, a most annoying situation.
It has completely new connotations now we are all assuming herbicide resistance is prevalent.
Maybe it is herbicide resistant, however you cannot tell just looking at the plant in your paddock. You can get testing done by various ways or you can assume, due to previous paddock history that you have for example, glyphosate resistance in your barnyard grass population.
Remember that one survivor can be solely responsible for your future problems if you let it set seed.
Hence a critical part of Weedsmart’s Big 6 is to stop seed set.
Simple, isn’t it? However, as I have said many a time, if you can stop any annual plant from setting seed, you will never have herbicide resistance.
I know all of us are fairly nervous about the weather and the limited amount of moisture we now have, however have confidence in your past farming practices and decisions.
Farming in our dry and hot Australian environment takes immense skill and some luck, however Aussie farmers are the best at this, so don’t second guess yourselves.