Meet the Roundtable growers – Richard Buchholtz at St. Thomas, North Dakota has been farming for more than three decades. Ken McKenzie at Grandview, Manitoba, and Wayne Aune at Fairdale, North Dakota, have seen weed resistance slowly develop in their areas.
Richard Buchholtz: I grow wheat, dry beans and sugar beets in the Red River Valley of North Dakota and we have just about all the weed issues. Wild oats, pigeongrass, mustard and kochia are the main problems. Kochia has a real resistance problem. It’s been resistant in our area for about 15 years.
Ken McKenzie: So far, we mainly see resistant wild oats. It’s been in the last eight years that I’ve become aware of it. We pretty well grow everything in the way of cereals and oilseeds. What we’ve learned is that you have to really watch your chemical Groups and rotate herbicides.
Wayne Aune: We’re seeing wild oats and kochia resistance problems. We became aware of the resistance problem with kochia at least 10 years ago and with wild oats about five or six years ago. We ran into problems. We’d spray the products and we’d see wild oats coming through all over. We checked into it and had the wild oats tested and they were resistant.
McKenzie: I think we’re seeing resistance because 10 years ago there weren’t that many chemicals available. It was just the old Group 1 [ACCase] chemicals. Resistance started to happen right here on our farm with Group 1s and there weren’t many Group 1s back then. We sprayed it for so many years that the plants got resistant to it. Back then farmers couldn’t get their hands on enough kinds of chemicals so everybody kept spraying the same thing. It was mostly Group 1.
Buchholtz: We were using a lot of different chemicals but they were in the same family; they had the same mode of action. In our grain, we used a lot of Roundup® in the fall to kill kochia. Then after Starane® came out a few years ago we’ve been using that, too, in our grains. In sugar beets, we try to use Nortron® as a pre-emergent chemical. When conditions are right, that helps a lot. And when Everest® came out with a different mode of action, it really cleaned up a lot of wild oats.
McKenzie: Our plan is to rotate and keep track of the rotations to avoid resistance. Keep really good records of all the fields. My advice is to walk your fields before you choose your chemical. Then after you spray, get out there within 10 to 16 days and walk your fields again.
Aune: I think farmers have gotten better control of resistance now because they know it’s a problem. We raise wheat, barley, canola, sunflowers, pinto beans, soybeans and some peas. Rotation is a big thing – by that I mean rotating crops and different chemicals. One thing about Everest is that it’s a different mode of action and it’s got extended control so if you spray early you’ve got that extended activity to get the wild oats. Ever since Everest came out we’ve had very good luck.
McKenzie: If we’d had Everest and more chemicals to rotate back when resistance was starting we could have been switching Groups, and I don’t think we’d have resistant weeds today.
Buckholtz: We’ve been using Everest for about six or seven years now. We’ve just got the two weeds, kochia and wild oats that we’re having resistance problems with, but I guess we don’t really have a problem with the wild oats much anymore now that we use Everest.
McKenzie: When we think we have a problem, we ask our chemical rep to give us a hand. He’ll come out and look at the problem with us and suggest things. That’s how I found out about Everest. It wasn’t about resistance. I wanted a product that I could spray on in one shot, one pass, and everything would be covered. That’s why Everest really turned out to be a good choice. Controlling resistant weeds was a bonus.
Aune: Weed resistance is pretty well managed in our area. But we might have a problem with some other weeds down the road. We’re all into the Roundup Ready® crops. Right now, Roundup is used on a lot of things – canola, soybeans and now corn. I think maybe quackgrass – I haven’t seen this yet – but I heard that in other states they’ve had problems with Roundup on quackgrass. That’s a problem we might see here, too.
McKenzie: We’re watching our chemical Groups very closely now. I would never spray the same thing twice. Whatever I spray on a specific field this year, I’ll automatically switch to another Group on that field next year. And sometimes I’ll go one more year after that before I spray the same Group. Then after about three years or so you can come back to a Group and it will do an excellent job for you.
Aune: You definitely need to rotate the mode of action from year to year so you’re not spraying the same thing every year. Some guys around here raise nothing but wheat and barley and they’re using the same products year after year. I suspect they’re going to have problems eventually.
McKenzie: After we spray, we watch for the plants that start to shrivel up and die. And if they don’t die or if they’re not dying, it’s time to get hold of your rep and get him out to the field. You’ve got to get a lid on the problem right away so it won’t happen again.
Aune: The solution to resistance, as I see it, is rotation. You want to use different modes of action. I think that’s very important. Everest is working well. When we have problems, it cleans them up.
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Meet the Roundtable growers – Richard Buchholtz at St. Thomas, North Dakota has been farming for more than three decades. Ken McKenzie at Grandview, Manitoba, and Wayne Aune at Fairdale, North Dakota, have seen weed resistance slowly develop in their areas.
Richard Buchholtz: I grow wheat, dry beans and sugar beets in the Red River Valley of North Dakota and we have just about all the weed issues. Wild oats, pigeongrass, mustard and kochia are the main problems. Kochia has a real resistance problem. It’s been resistant in our area for about 15 years.
Ken McKenzie: So far, we mainly see resistant wild oats. It’s been in the last eight years that I’ve become aware of it. We pretty well grow everything in the way of cereals and oilseeds. What we’ve learned is that you have to really watch your chemical Groups and rotate herbicides.
Wayne Aune: We’re seeing wild oats and kochia resistance problems. We became aware of the resistance problem with kochia at least 10 years ago and with wild oats about five or six years ago. We ran into problems. We’d spray the products and we’d see wild oats coming through all over. We checked into it and had the wild oats tested and they were resistant.
McKenzie: I think we’re seeing resistance because 10 years ago there weren’t that many chemicals available. It was just the old Group 1 [ACCase] chemicals. Resistance started to happen right here on our farm with Group 1s and there weren’t many Group 1s back then. We sprayed it for so many years that the plants got resistant to it. Back then farmers couldn’t get their hands on enough kinds of chemicals so everybody kept spraying the same thing. It was mostly Group 1.
Buchholtz: We were using a lot of different chemicals but they were in the same family; they had the same mode of action. In our grain, we used a lot of Roundup® in the fall to kill kochia. Then after Starane® came out a few years ago we’ve been using that, too, in our grains. In sugar beets, we try to use Nortron® as a pre-emergent chemical. When conditions are right, that helps a lot. And when Everest® came out with a different mode of action, it really cleaned up a lot of wild oats.
McKenzie: Our plan is to rotate and keep track of the rotations to avoid resistance. Keep really good records of all the fields. My advice is to walk your fields before you choose your chemical. Then after you spray, get out there within 10 to 16 days and walk your fields again.
Aune: I think farmers have gotten better control of resistance now because they know it’s a problem. We raise wheat, barley, canola, sunflowers, pinto beans, soybeans and some peas. Rotation is a big thing – by that I mean rotating crops and different chemicals. One thing about Everest is that it’s a different mode of action and it’s got extended control so if you spray early you’ve got that extended activity to get the wild oats. Ever since Everest came out we’ve had very good luck.
McKenzie: If we’d had Everest and more chemicals to rotate back when resistance was starting we could have been switching Groups, and I don’t think we’d have resistant weeds today.
Buckholtz: We’ve been using Everest for about six or seven years now. We’ve just got the two weeds, kochia and wild oats that we’re having resistance problems with, but I guess we don’t really have a problem with the wild oats much anymore now that we use Everest.
McKenzie: When we think we have a problem, we ask our chemical rep to give us a hand. He’ll come out and look at the problem with us and suggest things. That’s how I found out about Everest. It wasn’t about resistance. I wanted a product that I could spray on in one shot, one pass, and everything would be covered. That’s why Everest really turned out to be a good choice. Controlling resistant weeds was a bonus.
Aune: Weed resistance is pretty well managed in our area. But we might have a problem with some other weeds down the road. We’re all into the Roundup Ready® crops. Right now, Roundup is used on a lot of things – canola, soybeans and now corn. I think maybe quackgrass – I haven’t seen this yet – but I heard that in other states they’ve had problems with Roundup on quackgrass. That’s a problem we might see here, too.
McKenzie: We’re watching our chemical Groups very closely now. I would never spray the same thing twice. Whatever I spray on a specific field this year, I’ll automatically switch to another Group on that field next year. And sometimes I’ll go one more year after that before I spray the same Group. Then after about three years or so you can come back to a Group and it will do an excellent job for you.
Aune: You definitely need to rotate the mode of action from year to year so you’re not spraying the same thing every year. Some guys around here raise nothing but wheat and barley and they’re using the same products year after year. I suspect they’re going to have problems eventually.
McKenzie: After we spray, we watch for the plants that start to shrivel up and die. And if they don’t die or if they’re not dying, it’s time to get hold of your rep and get him out to the field. You’ve got to get a lid on the problem right away so it won’t happen again.
Aune: The solution to resistance, as I see it, is rotation. You want to use different modes of action. I think that’s very important. Everest is working well. When we have problems, it cleans them up.
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