Sarah, welcome back to the War Against Weeds Podcast. This is Sarah Lancaster, and we're here kicking off season number eight. Can you believe it? We've been doing this for eight seasons today. I've got the whole team together today. So Joe Ikley is here with us today. Hey, Joe,
hello.
Alyssa Essman is here.
Hey, Sarah,
Howdy, and we've got three special guests with us. So Joe, Alyssa and I all invited some of our favorite farmers to come on and share just a little bit about their perspectives of weed management this summer, and just to give you guys a feel for what folks are dealing with in different parts of the country, so let's give the farmers a chance to introduce themselves. So let's start with Cody. Cody, can you tell us just a little bit you know your name, and then tell us
a little bit about your farm? Yeah.
So my name is Kody Came. I farm here with my family in Salina Kansas, central Kansas. I would be fifth generation. And we are a mainly a wheat and soybean farm. We usually try to do about 40% wheat, 40% beans and then 20% corn, all of our wheat acres, we double crop to double crop. Milo, we're starting to experiment with a little cover crop. And then we do have a cow calf herd as well. So we we've got plenty that keeps us busy around here.
So thank you, Cody, I just came from a grain sorghum field, so, like the itch was revived just by thinking about double crop. all right, Austin, you want to go next?
So I'm Austin Sundeen. I farm up in north east, north central, North Dakota, a little town named Brockett. I farm with my father and son, hopefully coming onto the team here in the next couple years. We grow mainly corn and soybeans, but we do have canola and barley and wheat and pinto beans and kind of everything. Maybe not every year, but year to year changes a little bit so.
And then last, but certainly not least Greg.
I'm Greg McGlinch. I am from Western Ohio, from dark County. Specifically, we sit right on the Indiana line in a in a little town over sales Ohio. The Family Farm is we've had it since about 1900 so I'm fifth generation on the farm, and we grow corn, soybeans, wheat, oats, crimson or medium red clover, cereal, rye, and we do a whole host of cover cropping. And I provide some recommendations to farmers in the area and in the state and help guide them and show them kind of what we're doing on the
farm. But beyond that, we also pasture poultry. We build our own processing trailer, where, generally in a year, we process between six to 800 chickens and then some turkeys, and then we sell some freezer pork and do a variety of other things beyond that, also distribute some feed and so forth for various livestock in the area.
And Greg, you just gave me flashbacks to like plucking chickens.
We've got a process down. It takes us about, I don't know, little under two minutes to get them done. So
we were not that so thanks to all three of you guys for making time to chat with us today. Like I said, I think this is probably one of my favorite conversations when we have farmers on just because it's it's good to keep us academic types grounded in the real world. So so that was the first question that I had sent to you guys. Right was just to
talk a little bit about your farm and what you're up to. One thing that we should probably specifically touch on before we jump into the next couple of questions, though, guys want to talk a little bit about your weed management programs. You know, Kody, you mentioned cover crops a little bit. Greg, you talked about covers so does that play a role? Tillage, herbicide programs, timing of applications. Let's go in reverse order. This time. Greg, do you want to go? Go first this time,
sure. This might be some flashbacks for Alyssa, because I'm always picking her brain or throwing some things at her, like, what do you think? And I haven't got the you're crazy yet, but I'm sure her face would show it over a phone call. So weed management, we we use. Uh, burn downs and residuals, but we're trending into trying to reduce the amount of herbicides used through the roller crimping method and
soybeans and standing rye. I probably done it for about four years now, and I'm slowly getting better, but it's only part of, it's part of the management package that we employ on the farm. A lot of times we will, we'll have a pretty, pretty good rotation of corn, soybeans, wheat or oats or cereal rye, and then follow back to corn or soybeans from there.
And within there they we use for, for corn, we'll do our burn down because we're killing a cover crop of generally, I use Roundup and 2,4-D, and then I'll plant corn, and then go back in and, you know, once the corns emerged, and use some atrazine, acetachlor, some other things to keep my weed pressure down. And we've had very we've been very successful with that. And then I've also found that since we do get enough rain, we're able to do some aerial seeding into that corn and allow for some
establishment of cover crops. So it's kind of a balancing act, you could say. And then with soybeans, that one's a little more, it seems to be coming challenging with the onset of waterhemp. That is just a beast, and it's frustrating. But we do use a residual I've had success with the roller crimping with a one pass herbicide system, with that roller crimping So, but I'm going to continue to to explore that. But you know, our residuals are usually metribuzin And, oh, man, I'm drawing a
blank on some of the others. I'm not. I'm not a weed scientist. Sorry. I'm sure the other guys are better at naming these off than me, but I'm trying to run them through my head. But, yeah, but we also use liberty and enlist to control some of those areas that are a little tough.
Thanks Greg. It sounds like you're using a kind of the whole all the tools in the toolbox, right? The roller crimping thing is really of interest, I know, to a lot of folks right now. Austin, do you want to go next? So
our soybeans are, I don't want to say that. I'm no till, but we're minimal till. I do own a Salford, which is kind of bad words sometimes to people, you know, they think vertical tillage, or, you know, powdery dirt blowing, but, but so we, we have a non chopping corn head, and we will apply our phosphate and run the Salford over top of it in the fall, and then direct Seed soybeans into that. And we use a
sulfentrazone, metribuzin with a paraquat for our burndown. And then we follow that in season with the enlist program and liberty. In Season, corn is a little different, so we strip till our corn, or we deep band our fertilizer in the fall, no residuals in the corn, and we follow with a post of, just like a lot of cinnamon Atrazine. So pretty, pretty simple. Your your small grains, you know, we might come out there and do a burn
down. Or canola will get a burn down of a paraquat or something po or, you know, pre, pre emerge, and then, kind of, you know, the canola is just gonna have a Liberty pass in season, maybe some clethadim and wheat is pretty simple up here. I mean, it's kind of a husky FX in season type product. So
awesome. Kody?
yeah. So kind of like Greg said, we've been trying to reduce our herbicide output a little bit. This past year was our first year we have a see'n spray ultimate. So we were trying to reduce some herbicide application with that typically, again, kind of like Greg, where several passes usually we're pretty well a four pass system with every crop besides wheat. We're going out there with our in our Pres. We're trying to
rotate our residual as much as possible. But typically in that burn down, we're going to have paraquat if we have to, if we have grasses out there, we're making two pre passes, one with Roundup, one with paraquat, and then our soybeans are all enlist soybeans with the corn this year and with some of the soybeans, we did have a decent amount of Palmer Amaranth pressure, so we were also tossing some Liberty out there as well. And yeah,
like I said, we've been rotating our residuals. We will do zidua On the beans. And. Um, we've done some metribuzin and sulfentrazone. We like to we, I guess I should say, the past two years here now that we've been running some Outlook. So yeah, we've been really trying to mix up our residual program.
Excellent, excellent. So I think you guys kind of alluded to it, but maybe, just for the record, before we jump in, maybe we should talk about, what are the like? I don't really like the term driver weeds, but what are your most troublesome weeds that are kind of driving your decision making processes? Austin, do you want to go first
this time? Kochia. Kochia. And believe it or not, foxtail. Barley is becoming to be an issue up here that we didn't see coming. It kind of, you know, thought we could handle foxtail. But more and more I keep going no till. But it's not no till, it's the minimal till practices. It's just less tillage in the field. I don't know really where it's coming from, but, but it's getting to be tough so, but I also live in a pretty extreme part of the pothole region in
North Dakota. So we have some salinity soils, and some, you know, just some tougher ground too. So it's pretty easy to to lose, lose control in some of them spots.
The uninitiated, foxtail barley is just it's a perennial, but it's a pretty shallow rooted grass, but it is just a pain in the neck, and it loves saline areas. So all these salty areas, like Austin mentioned, it's going to thrive there. The seed will both blow around and float. So oftentimes, this time of year, you might be standing outside and get smacked in the face with some spiky foxtail barley seed.
We've had really good luck some springs is going out there with a paraquat Roundup. Seems like it takes, you know, a full, full shot of Roundup to do it, and the spring is so cool that it doesn't work that well. So we've been going out there and trying to hammer those some paraquat and it seems to do okay. But it's, it's, it's not great either.
It reminds me a little bit of what some of our folks say about tumble windmill grass. Do you guys have that one? Kody?
No, no, we don't seem to have an issue with that one.
Thats good. Keep it that way.
Joe, you mentioned it was spiky. Is that the one that has, like, really intense spikes? I haven't messed with it too much, but I got contacted about, I think someone's dog, they might have eaten it, and they were concerned about it.
No, it's more this. The awns are very sharp. Ons are sharp. Okay, yep, okay. And it can almost become kind of wind Born. I've been sitting in a combine cab to get hit in the face with foxtail barley seed. If I have the the door open so, but mostly it floats. So you'll find it follows waterways. But it's, it's this grass that timing is very important for control with something like glyphosate and rate, as Austin mentioned. But other than that, in season, there's not a lot.
There's a lot that'll bang it up.
Yeah, right.
Come August, it's back with the vengeance, and you feel like you made no progress on it. So
random question, where is foxtail barley? Is it native to the US, or is it introduced?
Well, pretty sure it's native. I would have to double check, though.
So it's it's interesting, because a lot of our from kind of Kody's area, West, a lot of our true no till guys, and even some of the conventional till folks, they really struggle with these perennial, warm season native grasses, like they are some guys. I mean, talk about changing tillage systems just to try to get a handle on it.
tillage is one thing that does well. I mean, a field cultivator will will take out foxtail barley, but your options and some corn ground is kind of tough, tough for that.
So it's just interesting how it's, it's kind of got a lot of similarities, but it's, you can tell you guys are further north. It's just a little different.
It has found its niche up here. And I think it likes our environment and soils more than just about anywhere else that I've ever been, at least. And yes, if you do some minimal tillage or just have these saline areas, it's going to find its way there. Yeah,
so those like early succession species or whatever, right that they can tolerate those bad
but if you have negative environments, if you have enough help for children something, it's very shallow rooted, so you can pull them out quite easily.
Oh, Kody, you want to go next?Yeah?
So yeah. I guess I should mentioned earlier too that we are 100% no till here, so that that kind of changes up our herbicide program a little bit, but our big issue is Palmer. That's really the only one. I mean, if we, if we didn't have Palmer, we'd be sitting pretty good.
Yeah, so across the state, Palmer Amaranth is. Is, is what we fight.
of like, kind of like Joe said, we actually, we had to get a crew out there, and we were pulling some Palmer out of some double crop Milo fields this, this summer. So, yeah,
our grain sorghum guys struggle with Palmer Amaranth control. So, yup, all right, Mr. Greg, what do you think for troublesome weeds?
Well, back in my day, when I first started, it was horseweed, or marestail. And since we because we were all no till, but since we've introduced some cover crops and and how we've done some management. We've that hasn't been a problem. I wish, I hate to say it that one's an easy weed compared to what we're seeing now with waterhemp, it is just unbelievable. You think you get the first flush controlled, and then you get a rain in mid August, and that second flush
just pops. And you're sitting there, and you're like, a month away from harvest, and you're like, Oh, this is sickening to see, see it pop, you know, above the canopy. And what do you do? And, you know, the residuals work, okay, it seems like, but, boy, it's, it's, it's a tough old weed, you know, giant rags, another one, but waterhemp, the one that I think is, is our big, big one we're going to continue to fight.
All right. Are we ready to dive into the harder questions then? All right. So I'm curious to know, what do you guys think were your weed management successes in 2024 so, you know, think about it like with something you tried a little different that you're really pleased with, or
something that worked way better than you thought. It might just anything that that you think is a win, that like, if you're, you know, at the the farmer meeting, or the coffee shop, or whatever you're going to want to tell tell your buddies about so maybe they try it too. Do you want to go first? Cody, yeah.
So really, our biggest success this year would have been in our soybeans, our enlist and liberty program worked really, really well. And it might have been kind of a timing thing, you know, we had a little moisture and some humidity and heat when we were running that liberty. And of course, that is going to amplify your liberty quite a bit. And so really, our soybean fields are really, really clean this year. That worked really well for us.
So I have to ask the curiosity question, do you think the new sprayer technology impacted anything in your soybean weed management?
It definitely didn't hurt us by any means. No, we got great control. Obviously, the cameras were seeing all the weeds we have been making to post applications, just because we have that technology now and we don't feel like we're just throwing chemical out there and kind of wasting it. So we did make kind of that second cleanup pass, but we had, we had great luck with it.
Good. Greg, do you want to go next? What was your biggest success this year?
Well, this is the one that makes the folks at the coffee shop talk. So we, we planted green,
and that'll make the folks at the coffee shop talk.
What's all that yellow stuff on the front of the tractor? But this one, I think, was probably my far my success, and this is where I'm going to kind of continue to move forward on we we planted green. I let the beans get to about V, v1 v2 I went in and I crimped my rye. This actually held back a lot of my weed pressure, where I only did 111, application. And you guys are going to laugh, because you're like, Oh, you only made one app, herbicide application. I made one herbicide application
of liberty and glyphosate, and the beans are still clean. And I, I mean, Alyssa has been out, and she, I mean, not to the field site, but so I've sent her pictures of some different things we've been doing and but I could probably send another picture and it they look beautiful. So that one, there was probably my most economical, you know, method of weed control. Now, not all of them are that successful. You know, I've had, I had one field where it wasn't that way, but I had to
spray twice. But at the same token, I sprayed early. Burned down because a lot of us were getting in the fields early this year, where I sprayed a burn down with my residual and a couple fields I had to actually go in two times to clean up. So so my residuals wore off, and we were fighting some of them troublesome weeds. So I think I'm going to try to work harder at learning and cutting my teeth on that.
Yeah, Planting green, like, like you said, that will make the folks at the coffee shop talk, for sure. I don't. I was talking to maybe a farmer. I think about this whole idea of cover crops and Planting green. And Greg, I'm curious, because you seem to be pretty experienced with the cover crops here. Do you think that there's more of an art or a nuance as to like, when you can get away with Planting green, when you need to
terminate early? Like, do you think about how the environment in any given growing season affects your termination plans?
Yeah, yeah. We were. We were a little wet this year. Going into spring, planting made a little more difficult. But after our 2019, year, when we were planting corn and tech, second week of June, we were planting green then. So at that point, it really tested my, my expert on, I don't know, expertise, or my comfort level, and that that was when it really kind of hit me that, okay, I can do this and it's going to work.
So then we just started taking it to another level and and, you know, I'll look at the yield monitor at the end of the season
to see how those areas compared to others do and so forth. But yes, I think there's an art to the cover cropping, where planting, you know, in the fall for some of these, and then management in the spring is crucial, especially when I go out and talk with farmers, I'm like you to kill this rye, effectively, you have to make sure it's fully pollinated, or else you'll have a lot of them stand right back up.
Yeah, the rollercoa. The timing is so tricky,
and it's probably going to mention here we, you know, we talked about how you're from dark County, but when you look at the state of Ohio like that's you're right in the middle of waterhemp country. So it's kind of interesting to see how, you know, these different programs work on that specific small, seeded broadleaf that's kind of taken over.
Yeah, I think the adding that competition there to these weeds is what we're we really need to do, you know, I'm kind of looking this as you know, we're, we're the Olympics of agriculture, where we're going to plant our cover crops, and there are, they're going to be our gold medal winners and fighting some of these problem child weeds. So we'll let the weeds get a silver. We'll take the gold.
They don't need to be on the metal podium. Greg, it's a whole different contest. Hey, Austin, do you want to go and talk a little bit about your success?
I think our success was a failure at the same time. So our our pre free emerge for our soybeans, our Metribuzin and Sulfentrazone and a paraquat just, just did a great job on our broadleafs. I mean, we just, we did not have a broadleaf in the field, but grasses. We just could not control our grasses. So here we were going into, you know, the season with just, we want clean broadleaf fields, you know, because we run the enlist system, and we know that we
can't let our kosher get out of hand. But the same time, too, we were fighting some grasses. And so I think a great win was just, just the amount of rainfall we had after applying our pre emerge, really just did a great, great job for us. And then in season, yeah, we maybe had a few kosher escapes, you know, that got a little too big on us, you know, in some patches. But overall, our beans are super, super clean. We got a pretty, pretty nice bean crop.
It's amazing how much just rain makes everything right.
We missed that last year. So I mean, and we're not, we're not a dry area most of the time, but we didn't have the luxury of that rain last year, and we knew it kind of going into it so,
so I heard some, oh, go ahead. Sorry.
I was just curious. How much rain do you guys get annually, you know, what? Each of the locations, yeah,
probably in. We're probably 25 inches, you know. And we kind of seemed like we got that in May this year, you know, it, just it. It,
just about, yeah,
we were wet. We were wet.
You guys went, me too far off of that. Would you kody as far as annual rainfall?
I would probably put us closer to the 20, 18 - 20 in range. The past several years, it hasn't even been close to that. But right, right, but on a typical year, I would think we should be somewhere in that range. Yeah,
how about you, Greg, what's your typical precipitation?
We're probably 38 to 40. I mean, we're putting field we're putting drainage tile and get rid of it. But what I'm actually looking at putting in these control structures to back the water up to kind of like sub irrigate during the dry summer season. So we're actually tiling a field this summer, and we're gonna, I told him to put a control structure in for that purpose.
That'll be interesting to see how that turns out. I've seen a little bit of research on it, but I haven't talked to any farmers that have it yet.
So we've, I've done some research on control structures and and utilizing that as a method to, kind of, you could say, sub, irrigate or raise the water table. And it's, it's pretty impressive.
That's interesting. So speaking of water, I'm, I'm curious. Here Austin, you talked about rainfall getting their pre emergence herbicides activated. We know, you know a little bit about, like, the conditions that we need to get pres activated and that kind of thing. But it was, it was kind of pitched last night as a a need for for research that figuring out how to make weed control better in a drought. Do you think that's an accurate I'm just testing the
waters here. How much, how much brain energy do I want to put into heeding this advice?
You could only have the best of two. Or, you know, I don't know how to say that, but, I mean, you either have two options. You either have a a pre that the water is going to activate, or you run tillage. I mean, it that it your options are. So that's it. That's all you got. I mean, which, which one are you going to
pick? What do you think Kody?
I mean, with our weather being so variable here the past couple years, I mean, I would love to see some residuals where, you know, it doesn't take as much rainfall to get them activated, but I know here in the next two years, we're going to get just an enormous amount of rain or bigger rain events, and that's just going to totally wash it away then. So it's kind of a crapshoot
that's, I sort of felt like they were asking me to, you know, put a genie back in a bottle or something. But I didn't, I didn't know, what do you think, Joe and Alyssa?
Well, I was gonna say one, one thing that the pre emergence, like Austin said, Roll with what you got. And we we incorporate a lot, especially if we think it's going to be dry. But on the post emergence side, and Austin, you've been a pretty devout follower of delta t, and you can only get so many good conditions post emergence in a drought, but you think you've been doing a better, better job with this post emergence chemistry by paying attention to that particular
Yeah, 100% so no knowing that we have that on our sprayer too. We run, John despair, I don't see in spray, but we run, well, mobile weather, I think is what it's called, you know. So we can see that, and we will, I mean, I will shut the sprayer down when I see them changing, because I think it was three or four years ago our liberty application did not work. I mean, we thought that it was going to be perfect,
right? It was hot, it was sunny, and you know, but it was low humidity, and knowing what we know now making that application, it's better to shut it down than it is to keep going knowing what we know.
Joe, can you give a quick definition of delta t?
It essentially, easiest way to measure of humidity in the atmosphere. So it's the difference between the wet bulb and the dry bulb temperature. And I'm not a meteorologist, so I'm going to stop the scientific explanation there. But that difference, the delta, is the difference. So the triangle representation of Delta it's basically not
letting that product dry before it hits the plant.
But so, so essentially, the way it's represented, and our weather stations will report delta t and Austin area, and some others will as well, is its number. And basically a low number means you've got a more saturated atmosphere, and so you have a better condition. Droplets will dry slower, usually a little bit easier to get herbicides or
pesticides into a plant as well. If you have a higher number, 15, 16,17, higher, we've seen into the 30s, then that's a very dry environment where you're getting quick droplet evaporation, and oftentimes, depending on the year, if you're in a drought, etc, then you're also have hardened off plants at that point in time too. But on a daily basis, it's really a measure of the humidity of the atmosphere at that point in time.
And it doesn't matter the water volume, which seems odd, right? You think if it's low humidity. Eight. Well, I'll just increase my water volume. So if you're used to spraying liberty at 17 and a half gallons, okay, I'm gonna bump it up to 20. It doesn't seem to matter. If that humidity is so low in the air, water volume doesn't seem to matter.
So we've adopted it from Western Australia and Canada, and we're we're paying a lot more attention in our drier days, and it's by paying attention, I think it's helped out a lot of folks who are really tracking that. I
think that's interesting. My brain's spinning now a little bit on some things I need to tell a student, okay, so that was weed management successes for 2024 do you guys? The other thing I should have said at the outset, kody, Austin, Greg, like y'all jump in with questions for each other at any time, because, yeah, we, I definitely don't have a monopoly on anything. So, um, so the next question, though, that we kind of had had pitched to you guys about things to talk about, I
phrased it as learning opportunities. There are no failures, just opportunities to learn, right? So I guess, whose turn is it to go first? Greg, I think it's been a while since you've gone first. Did you have any learning opportunities this summer and that you're willing to share publicly.
Oh, we always have learning opportunities out there. I think a couple things. I think I got a little antsy on trying to get in the fields, and it was a little wet, so my I probably started planting a little little early on some of the fields that were damp, which can create some emergence issues and so forth, especially some of the equipment we were using. But you know, live and learn, when you see your neighbor going it makes you a little antsy, even though I know better, I still
test the water sometimes. Yeah, learning wise, I think, I think just waiting till my beans emerge to roller crimp, I've done it where we plant and then crimp, and then I've done it where we let them emerge, and I think that seemed to work better in this situation. So I'm going to take that and probably try a
few different things next year. As we keep moving forward, I know also that our nutrient management styles, too can really influence how well my, you know, my cereal rye gets established in in the fall and going so we use, we we're blessed with a plethora of manure in our area of Ohio. So, I mean, when you're sitting in a county that's probably going to be one of the number one egg laying counties in the US, there's plenty of manure to go around so and other we have a
lot of other livestock access and manure here too. Okay, so
now I need you to kind of step that out a little bit for me. Like I said, You got to show me twice sometimes. So when you say that your fertility program influences your ability to establish covers, can you kind of walk that out a little bit and explain how what that connection is? Yeah.
So, for example, in the fall where we where we apply, say, some steer compost or a little bit of nitrogen, I will tend to back some of my seeding rates down because of the tillering, because if I plant a bushel of rye out there like I normally do, it'll be as thick as the hair on the back of a dog. So in those situations, I'll tend to back it off to maybe 40 pounds or so. So just because I know what's coming in the spring and how thick it'll be.
So you're thinking about termination already when you're planting, and what kind of stand you're going to have
exactly. Oh yeah, yeah, you got to be thinking about that in the fall and and where you're going to be actually, you know, the fields that I want to roll or crimp, usually, I want to make sure I had a good herbicide program prior to that too. So it's, it's a management thing where we also, I kind of keep in the back of my mind. You know, this field had been corn, soybeans, or x, y and z, and then how many years? Person, what programs I used. That
makes sense. So you're thinking kind of longer term. That's something that seems to come up in some of these academic conversations, right? Is, how do we shift from a year to year kind of crop rotation thinking to a longer term crop rotation planning, weed management, planning. That's what I should say there. So Kody, you want to go next? What were your learning opportunities this summer? Yeah, I
felt like we had probably two different learning opportunities this year. The first was in our corn. So we we've kind of expanded our corn planting window. We'd been trying to go with the late planted corn, because we were trying to tassel the first two weeks of August here, where we typically get more rain and typically get cool temperatures. Unfortunately, the past two years, it's pretty well been the opposite. So this year, we kind of expanded our window a little
bit. We put in some early corn, some kind of middle of the season, and then some of that late corn as well. But our issue was we were planning on doing the same post on that corn, for the early the middle and the late corn. And with that early corn, kind of like you guys had said, we had liberty in it, and we just did not have the heat. Actually, at that time, we had decent humidity, and we thought we were going to be okay, but we were really lacking that humidity, and we just did not
get good control at all. And then our other one, we actually had some wheat fields that got hailed out so we didn't end up harvesting them. And so when we went in to plant our double crop, that pre pass that we had, I mean, we still had 20 gallons per acre that we were putting down with paraquat, but we just did not seem to get good coverage with some of that wheat still standing. And so those, those have really been our problem fields here as of late, those are the ones that we're
having to go through and pull pig weeds out of. But other than upping your gallons per acre, I don't really know what else you should do. You don't really want to run a combine through that just just to be able to get good weed coverage. But yeah,
yeah.
So that actually came up on a conversation this morning. Cody is just that exact situation with double crop, Milo behind wheat, and just the volunteer wheat and the impacts for planting wheat. Worried about week street mosaic and the green bridge and that kind of thing. How are you so we're not,
yeah, we're not. We're as worried about that. We don't have wheat on wheat, so that's not as big of an issue for us. But I know there are some guys around that are, are worried about that kind of thing.
So that seems to come up this time of year every year. And how do we keep the volunteer wheat out?
Yep,
okay, Austin, what were your learning moments this
summer? We could have, we threw, we could have thrown everything out the window this spring, you know. So we came off of a pretty decent drought last fall. No no tillage was done, you know, we did our dirt deep banding for our corn. And then, then the rain started this spring. And, I mean, there was, I think, three days, I came out to the farm and went, I got to go buy three field collimators, you know, we just, we're going to switch everything around. We, I mean, it's, it's
all going to change. And so we got, got, got the crop in. But I've never seen our corn come up so uneven. It was just waves out in the field. And we're trying to hold off on our post emerge to try to make it a one pass system, you know? So we kind of let that go a little bit later than we should have. We ended up having some decent control on it, but it just, we just didn't
know what to do with it. We were looking, you know, we were, we weren't even knee high, we weren't even ankle high, you know, come the first of July, and we knew that, you know, our timing had, we just had to do it and and it canopied, and it worked out okay. But just, just that corn crop, just didn't know what to do with it,
yeah. So more respectful on that. Basically, throughout June, any given field, we had three different corn crops, even it was all planted the same day.
We knew the first application. We knew that we could do fine, but what is our second application going to be? You know, if we went out there and jumped the gun on it, right? I mean, we're only labeled on a lot of products, up to a, you know, up to a v2 or v3 you know. So we don't want to be going out there with Liberty. We're already using Liberty more than we should be. I believe, you know, is kind of a Hail Mary pass. So I don't know, we kind of push it off as long as we
could. And I don't know, we'll see when we get the Combine out there how well it did, you know, but, but now it looks okay. I. Oh,
good, Kody, you're chuckling. What are you thinking there? No,
yeah, just like Austin said, You're never going to know until you actually write the Combine out there. Yeah, right.
That's all right. We had the same thing. I looked in the field, and I was like, Oh, that one, that was a little wet spot there, and you can tell it, it said a couple of the
areas back and when you're trying to make these practices work for you, and I go back to the field cultivator, you know, you don't want to change everything you've done just because it's just going to work out that one year like that, because that would have been the easy solution, right? Oh, just go field cultivate everything, you know, knock out our weed pressure, you know, and go for that. But we've kind of
tried so many years to try to make it where it is today. We didn't want to wreck that kind of what we got built up so it was tough.
Every year has its own challenges, right? Okay, last question, this is kind of a fun one, I think the question is, if you could have a silver bullet for weed management, what would it be? Whose turn is it to go first with that one? Anybody want to go first? Any volunteers?
I think it's a it would be a pre emerge that doesn't need any rain and lasts all year long. If you got that, I'll, I'll take it, bring it out.
It doesn't last into the next year, right? You're right. Yeah, it's
only got what, eight month carryover. Yeah, as much as our sprayers are fun to drive and comfortable to sit in. Yeah? Come, come the 15th of July, we don't want to be there anymore. Yeah, that's golf season. It's golf season exactly,
spoken like somebody who doesn't have livestock,
corn and beans, like a lot of golf in the summer
Kody. What do you think?
I mean, I kind of agree with Austin, something, some sort of pre, pre emergent herbicide. I mean, it'd be great if it would specifically target palmer amaranth and just last in the soil as long as we wanted it to. But yeah, something like that, I would have to say, would be the silver bullet.
What do you think, Greg?
You know, I wrote some notes down and and the same thing. I had the kind of that pre emerge. But if we could really predict the weather and the timing to make everything work, because that's where we get into it. I guess if we had that easy management button, that'd be fantastic. But, yeah, I couldn't agree more.
The scary thing is, I think some people see it out there, and it's called Liberty, and I just, I'm just worried how long that is going to be effective for us? Because, I mean, evidently, Cody's using it in list. I'm using it unless the program, you know it is, it's, it's out there. And I seen it this year, I had a neighbor call me to make sure my corn was liberty, because he was going to go spray liberty on his corn, you know, we'll, we've seen this before. This. It's not the answer.
So yeah, this was the first year I've had a mix enlist With liberty for a field not my own, but a field to control waterhemp. And when I'm starting a mixed in list, that makes me a little nervous to because we're running out of the tools in the toolbox. It
works awesome today. I mean, it really does. But
now on the other note, last year, we had really good success. This was on neighbors field where we we did put some warrant down. We did a post in the soybeans with some warrant along with a little bit of burn, you know, herbicide to control the weeds, and that really prolong or really reduced the amount of water hemp we had to control. Now, fast forward this year. That's not what they wanted to do, and we saw some issues, so we had to employ, unless to control some of that.
So bonus question, Greg, your comment about this year versus last year made me think about this. I hate to bring up a source subject, but looking at commodity prices, how is that changing? How you think about weed management for 2025 is it?
Yeah. I just looked. I mean, generally, we're positive bases on corn today, I looked where negative 20. So I know that's not common all around, but we've been very fortunate in our area. But yes, that's what we're going to have
to do a hard look at for next year. Is, is these residuals, and then also the fact that maybe trying to really investigate the roller crimping, because when I compare the economics of residuals and post spray plus another post spray, compared to trying to plant green and then do a one pass system, you know, you know, that's a, that's a 40 to $60 savings off the back. I mean, that's, I mean, it's nothing you
can do every year. I'm not going to say, do that every year, but use it as a rotation tool to kind of spread that risk or spread the economics across it. Because, I mean, beans are, what, nine something right now. So our days of 15 and five, $6 corn, I don't know.
I would add to that too. I mean it to me, it would be hard to reduce or change your herbicide program just because of one year of commodity prices. I mean, just because of the future economic factors that that would that would bring about. I mean, if you're going to reduce your weed control just because you don't have, or don't think that you can make the money this year. I mean, that's going to affect you in the future. I feel like you kind of just have to write it out and hope for the best.
Well, yeah, and I think it's the point where we got to look at a kind of holistic management approach now, yeah. I mean, that's what my grandfather did, and we don't have near the rotations we did. You know, nothing wrong with corn soybeans, because, I mean, that's what pays the bills. But they used to have those rotations where you could add some of that, you know, opportunity to break or combat some weeds. I mean, it scares me when I see shatter cane in the
neighbor's field, and it continues to explode. But, you know, it's, yeah, management's the key. I think that would be another thing is just kind of looking back from when I was younger, you know, I saw so many different tools employed to control weeds that and I'm not going to lie, I think we lost some of those ideas and concepts, and it really wouldn't hurt to bring them back and use them as as good tools and teach them to like the upcoming generations. Because, I mean,
herbicides are great. They do wonderful. But once you get on to them, it's hard to break the dependence.
I don't think we're as far north as I am. I don't, I mean, I'm not saying that a cover crop wouldn't work. We don't put it into our program, so maybe something definitely worth trying on, but, but we run a pretty short growing season up here. Not really much can go on after the after the soybeans are, are off. And really, even, I mean, some years are, we don't get our wheat off till September 15, so, but I worry about, you know, a lot of the under rates of a
generic, you know, right, liberties. Bring up Liberty again. Liberty is working really good right now at 32 ounces. But, you know, guys are going to try to shave a penny off here and think that they can get away with it at, you know, 24 ounces, or 22 ounces or, you know, I think, I think that's going to be our biggest worry up here. We saw that with Dicamba. I mean, I can't, there was no reason that extend a max or that full rate of Dicamba took as fast as it did to become non, to not work
anymore. I mean, that that was a light cell product. It should have been for 10 years, and we, we wrecked it three and I'm afraid Richards, yeah, go ahead.
What's your general row spacing on soybeans in your areas? So, so
we're 10. I think a lot of guys are 10. There's some guys that do 30. We have a couple quarters in at 30. You know, for a bean that we know is going to branch out pretty relatively quick, but for the most 10 inch, it's not, it's not it's not our it's not our field issue. It's our headlands and our, you know, areas that are trouble spots, which it doesn't all. I mean, everybody talks, we'll put it into a
program, a grass or something like that. But that that's not economical either, because programs don't work for just that acre. I mean, if they're on to put some a program. Ram into a grass they're going to want to take, you know, X amount of good acres to go along with that saline acre. So, I mean, there are options, but it's, it's not always bulletproof, either.
As long as we go out with more in the tank than just liberty or we, we should be buying ourselves time. Is that right? I Yeah,
you guys are the experts. Yes, I
would, I would say you're on it. I would think so, yeah, I think mixing up those so is that?
Is that what caused the Dicamba to not last nearly as long as because guys were going out there just with the Dicamba product alone in their bean crop, Dicamba and roundup Exactly. They
didn't have much choice, right? Because Liberty wasn't labeled. So,
right, yeah, I suppose nothing could reef tank mix of that extend to max or ingenious products.
So yes, it'd be great to take a playbook out of our history when roundup soy was, I remember when roundup soy beans were were released, and everybody was like, just spray it with Roundup. Just spray it with Roundup. Guess what? We did the easy button. And now we're like, oh, Roundup was such a great tool. Was Yeah, so yeah, I always remind when I teach a class, I was like, you know, 1995 let's just talk about that. And you know, that was when I remember the Roundup Ready
soybeans, which was great. It it did a great job cleaning things up, but then I think we lost the idea of residuals and a few other things. So
I think what I'm hearing is there really is no silver bullet,
because silver bullets are for werewolves, right? So with that, I think that's a good place to kind of wrap things up. So I appreciate Kody, Austin, Greg, I appreciate your time so much, and we're always thankful for the listening audience, and we're thankful for our partners at Crop Protection Network and funding that we've had from the north central IPM program, and with that, we'll see you guys next time. Thanks for listening to the war against weeds podcast. We
appreciate your listening. We appreciate support from the north central IPM center, and we appreciate the collaboration with the Crop Protection Network. At crop protectionnetwork.org you can find the war against weeds podcast as well as other podcasts and a variety of other information related to crop protection. Thanks again for listening, and we hope to see you next time you.