To rescue yield, hit 'em hard.
A one-two punch is emerging in the battle against wild oat and green foxtail in wheat. Growers are pulling out two heavy hitters, Pre-Pare™ and Everest® to control their worst grassy weed problems in fields where yield is all but guaranteed to take a dive.
In September, Jon Stang burned off his grassy weeds with an application of Pre-Pare tank-mixed with Roundup® before planting winter wheat on his farm near Regent, North Dakota. A month later, to make sure his hard-to-control weeds got checked, he went back in with an Everest application. He says this worked well for him now that burndowns are a regular part of his field preparations.
“At one time, we didn’t burndown all the fields. We’d ‘vibrashank’ down the weeds we had before we seeded. But when we went to min-till or no-till, we started to burndown more often.â€
Wild oat infestations
If you’re battling wild oats in min- or zero-till, you basically have two lines of defense: prevent seed production and/or encourage germination of seed reserves.
According to Alberta Agriculture, the spring following seeding, up to 80 percent of seeds usually germinate, and the second spring following seeding, up to 97 percent. The remaining 3 percent may have what is termed “deep-seated dormancy†and can germinate for up to 12 years.
A Pre-Pare plus glyphosate tank-mix burndown is a good way to check fierce wild oat competition. North Dakota State University small grains specialist Kirk Howatt at Fargo, says, “Flucarbazone [the active ingredient in Pre-Pare and Everest] is a fairly reliable pre-emergent product. It is very good on foxtail, and as a post-emergence product, very good on wild oat.â€
Howatt adds: “It has a lot of activity on early mustards and on pigweeds, which may come up a little later. It also has activity on some other broadleaf weeds. Keeping that crop canopy open for the wheat plant early in the season really seems to promote crop establishment and enable more vigorous spring growth. The wheat canopy closes a little sooner, eliminating weed problems that sometimes emerge later in the season.â€
Howatt began working with Pre-Pare/Everest applications in 2005 at the research farm near Fargo. Other NDSU researchers are also studying the technique. “We’ve had the Pre-Pare/Everest combination work the best, with a definite benefit to the system, in an environment that encourages the early germination of broadleaf weeds,†he says. “We know we’re always going to get early germination of wild oat. The soil product is able to suppress and prevent that first flush of weeds. You get further into the season before there’s competition for the crop, and the crop does better. By the numbers, there are not more tillers produced or more plants, but it tends to be a healthier, more vigorous crop and tends to produce more yield. The yield improvement varies from just a couple percent to almost 10 percent. Sometimes you can get a 6- to 8-bushel benefit.â€
In terms of timing, Howatt says: “Early season competition with wild oats can be really severe, particularly if populations are higher, so waiting until the broadleaves have emerged can end up causing fairly substantial yield losses.â€
Pre-Pare is registered for use in the U.S. It is not registered for use in Canada.
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To rescue yield, hit 'em hard.
A one-two punch is emerging in the battle against wild oat and green foxtail in wheat. Growers are pulling out two heavy hitters, Pre-Pare™ and Everest® to control their worst grassy weed problems in fields where yield is all but guaranteed to take a dive.
In September, Jon Stang burned off his grassy weeds with an application of Pre-Pare tank-mixed with Roundup® before planting winter wheat on his farm near Regent, North Dakota. A month later, to make sure his hard-to-control weeds got checked, he went back in with an Everest application. He says this worked well for him now that burndowns are a regular part of his field preparations.
“At one time, we didn’t burndown all the fields. We’d ‘vibrashank’ down the weeds we had before we seeded. But when we went to min-till or no-till, we started to burndown more often.â€
Wild oat infestations
If you’re battling wild oats in min- or zero-till, you basically have two lines of defense: prevent seed production and/or encourage germination of seed reserves.
According to Alberta Agriculture, the spring following seeding, up to 80 percent of seeds usually germinate, and the second spring following seeding, up to 97 percent. The remaining 3 percent may have what is termed “deep-seated dormancy†and can germinate for up to 12 years.
A Pre-Pare plus glyphosate tank-mix burndown is a good way to check fierce wild oat competition. North Dakota State University small grains specialist Kirk Howatt at Fargo, says, “Flucarbazone [the active ingredient in Pre-Pare and Everest] is a fairly reliable pre-emergent product. It is very good on foxtail, and as a post-emergence product, very good on wild oat.â€
Howatt adds: “It has a lot of activity on early mustards and on pigweeds, which may come up a little later. It also has activity on some other broadleaf weeds. Keeping that crop canopy open for the wheat plant early in the season really seems to promote crop establishment and enable more vigorous spring growth. The wheat canopy closes a little sooner, eliminating weed problems that sometimes emerge later in the season.â€
Howatt began working with Pre-Pare/Everest applications in 2005 at the research farm near Fargo. Other NDSU researchers are also studying the technique. “We’ve had the Pre-Pare/Everest combination work the best, with a definite benefit to the system, in an environment that encourages the early germination of broadleaf weeds,†he says. “We know we’re always going to get early germination of wild oat. The soil product is able to suppress and prevent that first flush of weeds. You get further into the season before there’s competition for the crop, and the crop does better. By the numbers, there are not more tillers produced or more plants, but it tends to be a healthier, more vigorous crop and tends to produce more yield. The yield improvement varies from just a couple percent to almost 10 percent. Sometimes you can get a 6- to 8-bushel benefit.â€
In terms of timing, Howatt says: “Early season competition with wild oats can be really severe, particularly if populations are higher, so waiting until the broadleaves have emerged can end up causing fairly substantial yield losses.â€
Pre-Pare is registered for use in the U.S. It is not registered for use in Canada.
Write a comment
- Required fields are marked with *.