Watch flooded rice fields for emerging grasses
Most of the Arkansas rice is flooded by now and the remainder will be shortly. The crop always looks great when the water and nitrogen first hit it. It can also look deceptively clean.
Drift damage, lack of rainfall boosting weeds
The season has started out difficult in many areas of Arkansas — primarily due to the lack of rainfall. A lot of the residual herbicides applied in all crops have not been activated properly, which puts more pressure on the postemergence herbicide timing.
Emerged grass an early problem in rice
A lot of Command was out for days or even weeks without activating rainfall and most growers did not flush. Emerged grass that is going to be in a lot of the fields must be dealt with.
Pigweeds growing, flowering early
We have already had a lot of residual herbicides applied in February and March that went two to four weeks without a rain for activation. The way you have to compensate for that inconsistency is to make multiple applications — stacking or overlapping.
Multiple residual herbicides often needed
Take a worst-case scenario where you know you have major pigweed issues and you are going to plant Roundup Ready soybeans. Perhaps you have been in LibertyLink a couple of years and want to rotate out or you just like the Roundup Ready system. In this scenario, you definitely need to stack or overlap residuals.
Baldwin: Days of Plan B weed control are over
I just returned from the national meeting for weed scientists. It was a great meeting with a lot of excellent presentations. While a major emphasis at the meeting was on herbicide-resistant weeds, I was disappointed by the lack of emphasis on proactive resistance management.
Necessity drives farmers to innovate against weeds
In the next five years we will be using several non-chemical weed control methods to keep our herbicide programs viable. It will not be because you want to do these things, but rather you will have to in order to survive.
Aerial applicators often unfairly criticized for drift
We must have a viable aerial application industry in Arkansas. Those guys have a highly visible industry. Not many of us would want the sort of visibility in our business they have on a daily basis. Their industry has risks involved that not many of us would be willing to take.
Herbicide application timing crucial
Farmers this year should make absolutely sure they either have the spray equipment or they have made proper arrangements to spray their first postemergence applications timely.
Days of easy weed control are over
Part of my reasons for writing a history of our weed control is to show what we went through to get to Roundup Ready. In a lot of ways we are currently going backward.
Rope wick applicators led fight against johnsongrass
The first rope wick applicators for Roundup herbicide in Mid-South weed control simply used some nylon rope, 4-inch or so PVC pipe, some rubber grommets and a way to mount it on the tractor or other means to push it. You could buy them or make them yourself.
