Consider alternate ideas
Find other methods to control the crop seeds
I SAW this former paddock of chickpeas in New South Wales last February and originally thought the green volunteers were broadleaf weeds coming up in the pin trash trails.
On closer inspection, I discovered they were all volunteer chickpeas and they were only emerging from directly behind the header.
There were no other green plants in the paddock and it made me consider that if they were weed seeds accumulated from the paddock by the harvesting operation into this windrow or chaff line, they could lend themselves to other control methods besides herbicides.
We know it is all a numbers game with reducing the weed seed bank in our soils and paddocks.
So we should all be considering these sorts of alternate weed seed bank reduction ideas instead of reaching for a drum.
With reports flowing in of the continuing dry weather having impacts on our cereal crops and weeds not in abundance yet, the idea of spraying for broadleaf or grass weeds comes up for discussion about do you or don’t you.
You could bet on it that rain with fall on our cereal crops after the accepted time of spray window closure and the weeds in our non-flourishing wheat crops will then germinate with a vengeance.
There will be heaps of them and you may be faced with many weeds growing, flowering and seeding in the reproductive or dry down cycle of your cereal crops.
Is it a good idea to say “I will get them next year”?
Not really, so perhaps you need to consider what other control methods you can utilise, like your header front to gather in the plethora of weed seeds formed in your paddock, before they drop all over the ground.
The term many of our western and southern friends use is “harvest weed seed control” and they are definitely winning.
How about yourself and your situation?
Are you going to let those weeds – both resistant and susceptible ones – make your paddocks a mess?