Welcome back to the war against weeds Podcast. I'm Joe Ikley, extension Weed Scientist at North Dakota State University. My co host today is Sarah Lancaster at Kansas State University. Sarah, what's going on in these Southern Great Plains?
We are getting some much needed rain on the date of this recording Dr. Ikley so I'm a happy camper.
The date of recording, Weve got rain coming and some other stuff we're not going to talk about.
I don't like solid precipitation. You can keep it.
but we're here for weeds. We're not here for precipitation. So I think we've got a good podcast today. Got a couple of good guests, and we're going to go around the horn, introduce them, but a little bit of setup here. We're generally going to talk about some some concerns that agronomists might
have. We kind of started this as a concerns during tight margin or times of tight margins, but thought would be more appropriate to open up to general concerns and then, and then, as margins get tight, kind of focusing in how that might change things, about how, how these great people think about their their roles in their daily lives. So we're gonna go around the horn and just gonna introduce them and the order that they logged on here. And so first we have Jeff Nagel, Jeff, welcome.
Thank you, Joe, glad to be on today.
And so what we'd like to do is, have you just kind of describe, you know, the role of who you work with, and maybe we'll start with the major crops in your geography as well.
Yeah. So I work as an agronomist with Keystone cooperative, and I have four counterparts, so we have a we cover geography in Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, some into Illinois, and I particularly work in northwest, West Central and the central part of Indiana.
All right, perfect. And the next two have been on before, but we will reintroduce them. So we'll start with Kyle Okke,
well, thanks for having me, guys. So like Joe said. Kyle Okke, I am an independent crop consultant in southwestern North Dakota, and kind of work all over that area, at at different capacities, with farmers and some with retailers. And, yeah, main crops we got out here wheat that makes up, like over half of it. Then it's corn, and then it's a whole smorgasbord of other things, like lentils and chickpeas and
field peas and flax and soybeans and sunflowers. And I'm missing a lot, but it's, it's a bunch of minor crops, is what we call them. Everyone else's cover crop is our cash crop, but they're in small acres.
All right, good deal. Welcome back. And then the third person we have on today is Jason Hanson. Jason, welcome back.
Yeah. Thanks Joe and Sarah for having us on again. I work as an independent crop consultant up in the northeast part of North Dakota, I work with Kyle a lot. We do a lot of stuff together. Work with predominantly farmers and some retailers in some capacity. My major crops are spring wheat, soybeans, canola, those are my top three. And then it's barley,
edible beans, corn, field peas is what I had last year. And I sometimes will run into other crops like sunflowers, but those are, I guess, seven crops this last year that I mainly worked with.
Now it's intend to be moving target based on the year we have and the markets we have around here, well again. So thank you, everyone for for coming on that short introduction, I think, to kind of get a further introduction before we really delve into things. And maybe we'll go in reverse order this time. So we kind of mentioned the major crops. So I just want to know the major weed challenges you're
dealing with in your geography. And so Jason, we'll go ahead and start with you and go in reverse order this time, sure,
for the most part, kochia is King out in our part of the world. We had a wet year this year, so there was a couple other things that showed up in more frequency. We're just newbies to this waterhemp thing, but it has definitely showed up a lot more, wild oats, wild buckwheat, in some cases, marestail and volunteer Canola is probably one of my bigger weeds, so one of my crops is also one of my main weed sources.
Yeah, it's always fun to talk about volunteer canola as a weed, until you go asking them for some money. So you got to be I have to walk that line quite carefully, sure and Kyle, what about down in your geography?
It's it's similar to Jason. It really depends. By the farm, what I've noticed, if they're a dominant wheat rotation, we deal with a lot of wild oat, though it's grasses mostly, wild oat has become our biggest issue. So Wild Oats, green, yellow foxtail and barnyard grass probably our biggest issues, broadleaf weeds, it's kochia and marestail hands down.
So Kyle, do have to ask, I know we found a couple of decently loaded fields in Oliver county with waterhemp, nothing suspicious popping up in your geography,
nothing that I've seen personally the last few years. I will share. There was one isolated case where I'm I never had it identified. Didn't have the tools at the time. But there was a field that was planted to canola harvested. It had always been custom harvested from a crew in South Dakota. It had a very funny looking pigweed with the extended petioles, the water marks on the leaves, all that. And it was from a
glyphosate burned on it. I was like glyphosate, and I think a little bit of Dicamba burned on application in the fall, and it didn't get it, but that rotation has always had a heavy Liberty canola with wheat in rotation, and it's never grown out of proportion. And I've only seen it just that one one fall, but I don't doubt it's around
Kyle Joe likes to blame me for all of those sites in in North Dakota. So, you know, I'll throw myself under the bus before he has a chance to do it.
Well, the Manitobans blame North Dakotan, so that's the deal right?
Hey, the one good news. I found with with the Palmer that I blame, that the Palmer Amaranth I blame Sarah on is still pretty sensitive to glufosinate, so the populations we've been able to test that that's held up for us. But yeah, waterhemp, that's that's starting to change in the eastern part of the state, but pigweed is probably a good transition to go over to Jeff and talk about the major weeds in your geography. Yeah,
so we have our footprint is mainly corn and
since we're already down the pathway of blaming soybeans, with some we but, but Joe and Sarah waterhemp is the other people for things, so I know not blaming Jeff here, but I was gonna say I was in so I was at Purdue from 12 through driver weed, and it's a game changer. So I came back this area in 1996 and that was when we started having issues with pursuit, that was the main herbicide use, until it didn't 18, I guess from my years down there. And when I got there in
work anymore with resistance. And so roundup came on the market about that time period, and was really, you know, something that was very helpful, until it didn't work anymore either. So it is, it is a change in is what's driving our weed control programs? We have giant ragweeds, another one that we deal with in areas, marestales, you know, the other broadleave. But by far, waterhemp is the most expensive weed to control. We do have some Palmer Amaranth in the northwest part of
2012 we weren't really talking too much about waterhemp. Then Indiana. Hasn't spread as much as we thought it might have, but that waterhemp is about everywhere, and probably worse on the west side of Indiana, going in Illinois and then, but it's showing up more in the eastern part of the state of
Indiana and into Michigan and Ohio also. So it's what drives our weed control programs, and it's causing farmers to spend a lot of money on that weed this guy named Bryan Young showed up about 2014 and that was, seems like the only weed we talked about from that 14 until the time I left. So, yeah, well,
it hasn't changed, Joe, it's still it's still there, all
right. So I think that kind of sets the stage on some crops and some weeds. But before we really get into some of the other questions we really want to delve into today. The other thing I just want to set up, since you guys are consultants and work not just in weed control, is the other
things that keep you up at night that you have to deal with. And this sounds like we were all broad leafs and grasses, but annual weeds, so maybe this is where we might differentiate a little bit about the other agronomic challenges, and we'll go ahead and serpentine back again. So starting with, it's like a fantasy draft here. We're going to start with Jeff again.
Well, the other agronomic challenges, I think, as we go into the 25 season, it's a little bit, come on, it's a little bit profitability driven, right? So growers are, you know, thinking about with commodity prices down, we're pretty fortunate that we had some pretty good corn and soybean yields as a whole, which Bushels has helped a bunch. But obviously the the input cost or weighing on growers mind is commodity prices have have come down some with it. So I think
growers. Looking at that crop budget and how they're going to allocate dollars. So the fall, we had a lot of conversations are, you know, at the retail locations around, you know, the input cost on dry fertilizer and limestone applications to kind of set that up and and even beginning to think a little bit of thinking about the 25 season, and some of the challenges we're seeing around waterhemp, and actually maybe need to increase
spending for the weed control there. So it's kind of balancing that inputs between the different areas, and that's that's weighing on growers minds as we head into '25 Yeah.
The other thing I want to ask you about, Jeff, so this is a observation from afar, but our pathology colleagues can trip a lot, and so, know, you guys have some tar spot across the state. Is one of the many disease challenges. And how does that weigh in people's minds? Is that just kind of a we see it so we know it's there. Is that kind of a really big deal for you guys in your geography?
No, it's a big deal. And that's, a, that's a great point. And I call it the water hemp, of the of the weeds, of the of the diseases, right? So it that has been a game changer, too. So this year we had it in multiple areas. And you know, once it's kind of there it can, you got the inoculum for future years. So that's a, that's a great point, Joe and Sarah,
because that is a spin. We, I'd say a lot of progressive growers are, we're putting on reproductive stage fungicide applications, you know, driven primarily by Grey leaf spot and northern corn leaf blight. But tar spot is, is one that can escalate with time and and really take yield away pretty quick. So we had cases this year of, you know, some, you know, farmers may experience in that for the first time and experiencing 30 to 40 Buchel losses that they didn't treat.
So definitely some hybrid tolerance differences, but it is a factor, and most farmers are budgeting at a fungicide application. And there's even rare situations where two might be needed and that we, I think we're still learning. We're about seven years in a tar spot. A lot of good work coming out of the Midwestern universities, on, on managing that, but we're still learning. So it is, it is a definitely spend that the
growers maybe not have spent the past. And sometimes may take two applications,
and I'm just, I'm kind of tuned into that one. So I've got a some pathology training. But B, North Dakota finally made the tar spot map, and we did so with about 10 counties.
I don't know if that's a fist pump.
That's not a game you want to be in dude.
take it seriously, because they can take bushels off pretty quick.
Yeah, there's one we found pretty late in kind of a late season survey, since we had such a long fall. But I know our our pathologist is quite nervous, because everything we've been told is that this disease that loves cool weather, and we got that in abundance, if nothing else,
the the corn disease on the the radar here this year is, no, I'm gonna forget the name of it, crap. It's a virus. It's vectored by a little leaf hopper.
Was gonna say it's a new virus, isn't it?
Corn stunt. Yeah, yeah. So we had our we had our first field this year. Sarah of corn stunt identified. So it was pretty minor, but the first time, I didn't even know what it was. I heard about it some, but we had it for the first time.
So my my curiosity about Joe's question, the initial question. So if you were to rank like weed management compared to other pest management, like, importance wise, where would it rank, and then what would it look like? Is like a percentage of the crop production budget? Does that make sense?
I can only speak for my area, because I don't deal with the same weeds Kyle and Jason and Jason have there, but so, so waterhemp is, kind of, is, is an expensive weed to control because there's several sites of action it's resistant to So, so actually, you know, Purdue's doing some screening on Some of the soybean chemistries now, and it's a little scary on what they're finding on some of those things. So, you know, you start, we start to see less efficacy out of the hppds and
corn. We're seeing less efficacy out of saying elist one on soybeans, and our tools are narrower. And so how do you manage that? Well, you spend more on residual herbicide. You may be doing more tank mixing of multiple sites of action, which adds cost. And so that is, that is a waterhemp is, is an expensive weed to control, and then, and then, so that ranks pretty high on weed control as far as an input cost. And then the tar spot brings another. Are another piece into that that's
also a pretty good investment. So those two waterhemp and tar spot makes, makes those inputs on the crop protection side pretty significant of a budget.
And those are all separate passes too, would be my understanding, correct. So you have that factor, that cost and All right, so the Sarah's bonus question in mind, we'll go to Kyle now, if you can follow the string of what the original question I asked was, yep.
So you know, very, very similar outside of weed control, what's, what's of the major concern agronomically, I would say disease falls there, just because of how we're looking at things. So commodity prices across the board aren't great, right? But input costs have stayed pretty high. They aren't they aren't matching that. You know, fertility included, and what we have out here when you get into North Dakota is that we have diversity of those minor crops to grow.
And so that's why it's always, you know, up in the air what our actual acres are going to end up being. And so that's what a lot of guys are looking at. Hey, what can I get a good contract price for? Because a lot of this stuff is specialty. So you start talking pulse crops. That's a lot of, lot of guys want to go down that road this past year lentils, which is going to be specific to my area, and a little further west and north,
and kind of that geography. So along the Montana border was a very popular crop, just because of where you could be in a cash
basis, or a, you know, contract basis for cash flow. And I see that same thing again, but disease is going to be a big issue for us, not to mention that growing lentils out here is also a great point source to add to the weed problem we have, because there are, there are no real good, effective herbicide options post in that crop, except for grass and our pre emergent options, we have to use such a small rate to not not injure the lentils that we usually just introduce, and
they're they're not very competitive. So I could see us pushing a lot more to that which is concerning me over disease, because we're going to be really tightening upper rotations to make this cash flow thing work more in our favor. And my fear is it's going to get more expensive for weed control down the road, because very rare do I see lentil fields that are nice
and squeaky clean? They always, usually have that, that main one we talk kochia and and marestail for that in those fields, it's hard to keep them out.
And this wealth and Kyle, you know, this one would, this will be a fun eye opener for Jeff. Is that one of our best, maybe our Well, one of our only programs we try in lentils post emergence is getting the right balance of tough and metribuzin to kill our Kochia and not kill the lentils.
Wow. What an what an opportunity of products,
waterhemp, I have to just imagine, to laugh at any rate, of either those,
well, Metribuzin, from a pre emergent standpoint, Metribuzin is still very effective on waterhemp. We don't really use it much post because, you know, you really can't in soybeans, but lentils has got that weird tolerance there that we can Yep. And then tough, yeah, it's, it's a crop we can use it in, yeah, all right. And then, Sarah, are you keeping track your bonus questions, did he? Did you check off your boxes?
So where does weed control rank compared to some of your other issues?
To me, weed control is still on close to the top. I mean, first, first thing, I think, for us, is we're in a land of intermittent moisture. And so where usually I see the first hole happen here is everyone looks at a poor commodity price and high inputs, and they're going to want to cut back a little on fertilizer. And that's probably the biggest weed control problem you're going to introduce, is a poor canopy and and so I'd say fertility and and weed control are right there,
one and two together, but we control is an absolute must. If you don't have weed control, you don't have you don't have a crop. It's just plain and simple. You watch people cut corners on weed control, and it's majorly impactful to yield out here.
So in your area, what part of a what percentage of a production budget going to herbicides and other weed control things?
well, and maybe for some context to Kyle is that
Good question. It's probably less than you think,
Come on, Sarah, give us a little credit. It felt um, I'm, I'm, I could be way. Off. But I'm guessing we're like it was longer than six weeks this season. probably only around that 30, 40% of our inputs are weed control related, at least on the on the on the inputs thing, not the fixed costs and equipment and all that rent, but just your fixed or the the input side of things. you're talking your geography primarily one pass, if we can get away with it for most crops.
Well, right? But, but usually, that's where the failures happen. I mean, as long as we're as long as we're incorporating spring and fall burn downs, usually, then the one pass in crop, then we're fine with our limited moisture.
well you're all growing season is only like six weeks long anyway.
Let me tell you, if it feels a lot longer than six this year, for sure, but we put that fall burn down on in October that'll last us till May Sarah.
that's the expectation, isn't it? Yep, yes. And we have to crush everyone's we have to crush everyone's hopes and dreams every time they bring that up. Oh, this will last, right? No, no, it doesn't work like that.
All right. Jason, same question, if you can follow the string of questions,
yeah. I think the thing that's really stuck out for most of my guys, Farmer clients that I've talked to is we're just getting into the end of harvest, I got two corn fields out. That's it for the whole year. Otherwise, everything's off. Some seed costs. It seems that with the yields this year, seed costs, particularly corn and soybeans, are very firm. Fertilizer has not moved down like they said it
was supposed to. So that, coupled with just the tail off of prices, but probably the biggest thing that I hear from my farmers is the cost of repairs on machinery and the price of new iron, and how big of an impact that has, if you want to upgrade or you have to replace something, how expensive it is, and not only the cost, but in some cases, the quality of the parts that they're getting has really dropped off. So I have heard that from from quite a few people this year.
Now, you know, we ran into things that this year that were very unique, and we had some tremendously large winds that devastated some of our crops, particularly canola. We had some rain that came at the wrong time, and we ended with a lot of sprout in our on our malt barley. Like I think 10% of my total barley made malt quality. The rest is feed. I mean, 50 to
60% sprout, so that was one of our better contracts. And so people are looking around at, you know, an Omega three canola last year, malt barley contracts, our edible bean acres were way up, so they're kind of chasing some of that. And then we just have to see how that plays out. So then what happens a lot in that scenario is, is a lot of stuff gets left open. So I think to Sarah's question about we had a lot of quality issues if, if you need we'll match your Kansas low pro winter
wheat with some really low protein spring wheat. I mean, let's go head to head, I think. And usually we stick at a, at a, at a premium, higher protein. That wasn't the case, falling. Numbers were bad. So it has people really nervous, because they have a in low prices. You sit with a lot of grain in inventory. So we're, we're kind of nervous. We're nervous about that and what it's going to do. I think I spend more mental energy as a consultant on weed control than my farmer does.
He's willing to do what I tell them to do, but he's, you know, this, they go through stages like all of us, right? If I get herbicide questions in spring when I'm doing fertility, it's like, what? Hold on a secondary Mike. I don't have that part of my brain working. So with them coming out of harvest, they're trying to wrap up some fall fertilizer, get their ditching done, get the machinery winterized and put away and just
be done with stuff. So I didn't see as much. We talked a lot about some fall residual programs, and it didn't happen because the priority was other things. So it's still a pretty good chunk. I mean, our wheat, our barley, our canola, our edible beans, all our fungicide crops. Jeff, we've never sprayed Corn ever with fungicide up here. So if that disease comes in to our spot, that would totally change some things. But I think I spend more time worrying about it than my
farmers do. They're at okay, is this the thing to do? Okay? Well, let's do it then, all right, but other things get in the way, and they did this year, which it was a long year, I'm telling you, every one of us up in the northeast part of the state, we're just ready to let the snow fly, put the flannel on, get the soup pot going, and see how much beer is in the fridge. It's that. It's been that kind of a season.
Yeah, no, it comes down to this side or this corner of the state too. I mean, we, we went out, we finally got some fields ready for some fall applications. We go into some Farmer Field to chase some weeds. And that finally happened, this about five days ago, and driving out about an hour west, just the amount of tractors still in fields in mid November was eye opening.
We've been blessed with a very, very long fall there. There could have, maybe, should have been other stuff done, but he just can't always spend money, and it's just, it's just the time of the end of the year right now.
All right, so in the next question, unless we kind of weaved some listen to our answers, but maybe it's just worth asking flat out, to see if any, any other things pop into each person's mind. And we'll, we'll serpentine our draft order again and start with Jason. So out of everything, we kind of talked about, how do you balance those concerns? We'll just say, on an annual basis, it's not 2024, all those different things
you do as an agronomist, for your for your customers. And then we did kind of talk about this margins being tight thing and how that changes the equation. But maybe if anything in particular pops into your head that hadn't already going into into 2025, and how those conversations might be going. Maybe we can expound on that a little bit more.
I my soil sampling was up this year, so that is that's something that people are going to spend to find out where they're at. So we can figure out, and then we can, we'll probably adjust as to what's going to happen. We don't know 100% we probably know 70% of what's going to happen, but not
the remaining percents there. And then you just have it comes down to that farm and their situation, and then that field in its situation, and adjust, and you got to, kind of, kind of got to have the plan so it's not there's 42 different prescriptions out there on stuff, because logistically, you just open up your chances for more mistakes, not only on the
products, but your math and all that in crop. So you try to I've already sat down with one of my guys just to get a game plan of what we're going to do, and I'm assuming that that'll probably happen here. Between now and the end of the year, there'll be more of it this year, because it's just just tighter financially.
Kyle?
it's, it's very similar to Jason. You know, it's just, it's just getting some streamlined plans made, I guess is, is how we're going to try to navigate this from this year into next year, and the and the best way to look at is, if you can make a plan, now you could budget for it, and then you really focus more on, you know, where the plan wouldn't work, you know, once you get in season. So, like, that's, that's
how I always tackle the weed control program. Is a lot of these fields you have a history on, so you know what you're going to deal with, right? With, right? And so then you lay out the road map, or the plan for the weed control, and then you go, Okay, this is what it's going to cost. And so then we can put that as an absolute budget item, and go, where else
do we have to bail out on? And then once we get in season, in crop, then it's looking at, Okay, is there any special extenuating circumstances that make us have to change that plan? And like Jason said, you try to streamline it, because if you have 50 different, you know, plans, recommendations that go
out, you're going to have all kinds of mistakes. So you try to stream, streamline as much as you can with this fall burn down for us is where we get to make some unique, you know, choices, or whatever, you know, where are we going to use, you know, use just flumioxazin? Are we going to use sulfentrazone or metribuzin, or pyroxasulfone and all that? And so I've got
situations where we've. used all those, cobination of those and for specific reasons but I odn't think we would ever get away with that in the cropping year with how our system works with minimal passes possible, that kind of thing.
right, how about you Jeff?
yeah, it's interesting when Kyle and Jason were in different geographies, but just interesting to hear the general farm economy, just the tightness of that more and growers looking at that harder. But yeah, I still think that that some of the tough conversations are coming up during prepay, coming up here, around weed control, and what it's going to take. So, you know, they, as growers, got into
harvest. They they had good yields. And so they kind of were starting to stay with most in the nutrition program, some holding back a little bit. But a lot of them, you know, went ahead with eggs. They had good yields and and they knew that was part of the key to their good yields. The tough conversation is going to be as we get into waterhemp, it's like, I, I've been in this business a long time, and I've, I've never seen a weed that it's kind of scary in terms of the
resistance that's developing. And so it's like, we go down this path of using something till it's broke, right? And then you have the next thing, and we're running out of the next things, and the tools in the toolbox we're running out of. So you to get growers to think about, you know, just cultural practices, row spacing, crop canopy, you know, maybe some cover crops to help with weeds, but, and then, and then bringing
in different sites of action, and that's a spin. So, you know, we're going down this path with, you know, just enlist roundup or liberty on Flex beans. And so, you know, getting growers to think about making that spin, spending more money on a residual and then maybe tank mixing a Dicamba with an HPPD and corn, like we talked about before, those are all, those are all added cost, and that's going to be a tough conversation of,
like, wanting them to get to do that, and will they do that? I mean, and it's going to be important that they do, but that's going to be the tough conversation with it.
And I think that kind of sets up the next question I had pretty well. So, so given that context, you know what is? What is something that when you're working with your growers? And we'll, again, we'll start with Jeff and work backwards there of something that they need to do to be successful in weed control. And you kind of already mentioned
residual. So I think that may be probably a common theme. But we'll, we'll see, as you guys answer of you know, what's something that to be successful do this and then after that, it's kind of a negotiation.
Yeah, I would agree. It's probably that, you know, we still have, I would say, more in corn than soybeans, of growers maybe trying to do like tillage in a one pass post. So, so I think that that piece that's that's really imperative. We kind of have a five step approach to weed control, and one of those is, you know, start with, start cleaning the fall, either effective burn down or tillage, and then use an effective residual with multiple sites of action at planting
time. And that's a piece that we've got to get. We're doing a pretty good job. I think most growers are recognizing that, but still room for improvement. And that's just like you, you've got to be ahead of water hemp. You can't get behind it. And so we're, we're oftentimes chasing bigger weed. So getting on both the corn and soybean side and an effective residual with multiple sites of action is probably one of those non negotiable pieces.
One of one of the challenges we run into is early planted soybeans as a trend, for a good reason, but, but depending on the grower size of operation, on the soybean side, they may just get in start planting or do tillage and plant. And some of these PPOs and our pre mix is like the authorities and valors. It's three days after planting, and that window goes pretty quick. And so what is a grower back to? Well, back to the straight group 15, a dual, you know, a warrant or something.
And we're kind of like, becoming very dependent on that side of action. And so that's an issue. And so Joe and Sarah, maybe, like you mentioned that metribuzin, we do some, but we probably need to start bringing back in higher rates of it. So it's, it's a combination of that, but, but just, I think that foundation of starting out on those residuals is really critical.
So maybe before we come back north, Sarah, you're not a consultant, but you deal with pigweeds, slightly different than waterhemp. So just Just curious on your thoughts, on, you know, how closely they might mirror what Jeff just kind of mentioned, as far as what to say, good results out of your research program.
Yeah. I mean. You saw me maybe on the video and nodding along. I think that's, that's pretty much it, right? Most of our guys are going to try to come out with some sort of either fall, but more, more than likely, early spring, largely targeting Kosha and a lot in the western part of the state, but starting clean, whatever that means. And then,
like you said, the multiple sites of action for residuals. I was just chatting with kind of a smaller retailer, slash custom applicator type of guy here at the end of last week about how much he likes the flumiax is in pyroxa cell phone, so that fierce type of combination. And I would agree, when I kind of pull all of my trials together and soybean trials together and start looking at like, what are my top treatments, it's usually
something that includes one or both of those two products. But I think you had this study to the last few years Joe, I have been just so pleased with the length of residual control that I'm getting out of Metrobus and in my soybean studies and and what that looks like for Palmer Amaranth. I mean, I can't I'm very pleased with it. I'm not sure our consultant types and
our agronomists are all the way on board with that. Yet, I think they're still a little skeptical, but I think we've got like eight states worth of numbers to show that it's it's real and it works, and I think it's a really good alternative. No, my concern is one of my pet peeves for this whole what's successful. Thing is, I think we kid ourselves on corn. I think we kind of just stop looking for pigweeds and corn after a certain point, and we assume that we, you know, we see them
in beans, and they're a problem. And so getting that, that proper residual down with that post chest and corn, I think, is something that we probably don't spend enough time thinking
about, and like, how and where to use our Atrazine. But, yeah, I think, I mean, most guys on corn, they're like, You guys have alluded they're wanting to go kind of a one pass ish thing, if they can in corn and so that that typically, I think it looks good until the canopy closes, and then then we start to fall off a little bit there.
I don't know you're talking about the North Dakota pre coming, early post and corn,
right? Like, I think, I think every farmer, if they could get by with that, like v2 pass and corn and nothing, you know, early spring burn down in that v2 pass, they do it. But
So, Sarah, what rate of metribuzin Are you talking about that you're having success with? Yeah,
Yeah so we just summarized some data looking at metrobusine tank mixes and like anything that had a half a pound or even six tenths of a pound of metribuzin had really nice control season long, and then very little crop injury. Numerically, the crop injury was greater with this six tenths of a pound, but not statistically,
yeah, I agree. I think I've had that discussion with Bill and Brian at Purdue and Aaron Hager at University of Illinois. And I think people kind of growers kind of got concerned about crop response years ago. And, you know, we're not using as much Atrazine, and it we're and we're using some metrobusiness, but we need to be at higher rates. And that half pound rate is probably a minimum place for that, except for our sands. So that's, I think that's an excellent point.
So one of my concerns is, I think we're going to start seeing metribuzin creep into some of the corn market, and so now, then we're just going to be we're going to break that one too, if we start to look at it in more places. So
yeah, we're seeing same thing with Metribuzin. And I often say, I know North Dakota is in the show me state, but whatever show me translates into Norwegian. You could call us that sometimes. So, so we've taken a core group of those treatments, put them all over the state, just a crop safety trial, weed control trial, separated just for the two
different objectives to address that concern. So we have a lot of high pH soils and that, yeah, get burned once in the 80s or 90s, and you don't want to touch touch that product again, it seems. But then also the complimentary weed control that we're getting included. We put it didn't make Dickinson, but headinger and Williston this year. So to get us back on track and out west Kyle, if you remember the heck, the question I asked a while ago
was I, yeah, with, with the with the varying crop rotation, there's different like, must haves or non negotiables, as as I'm going to use that, because you don't like me using that term, but so, so first, if you're going, if you're going to a minor crop, and I'm just going to call the miner crop, people laugh out here calling a minor crop, but like, if you're going to sun. Hours, if you're going to lentils, if you're going to chick peas, field peas, trying
to think of a few others. If you know that's where your rotation is going, you have to be putting down some kind of late fall residual, not not an October residual, probably like a late October, early November residual. That's part of your burn down, and you still have to do spring residual so, so for
those crops, that's an absolute must. If you don't do those things, you are not going to be near as successful to seen it firsthand too many times when it comes to like the bulk of the acres spring wheat, for me, we're we're dominantly no till, because we're dry, so we have to be no till. That's how we're profitable. It's not a fad, it's not a soil health thing. It's a
we're playing as dry. And so the sprayer is our tillage tool. And those that try to get away without a spring burn down are the ones that always get caught with their pants down in spring wheat and have weeds that are too big by the time they get to their in crop pass. And so it's your spring burn down is, is such a big deal and not skimping on rates? So they don't, they don't have to be complicated. They don't have to be, you know,
necessarily, a lot of different modes of action. You can just take like or Dicamba, 240, glyphosate in a burn down at appropriate rates. And you can be very successful in spring wheat, because you got so many good modes of action and tools to use. Post emergent. But your Metro using comment, we don't have a lot of soybeans in southwest North Dakota. So that is the crop corn that I am utilizing metribuzin for Fall burn down in because we need something extra from what we
have. I've even watched flume oxygen, just Kosha blows right through it. In the poor area, or where you have the salinity areas, the high pH areas, Kosha blows right through that. And so we're doing combinations of flumy and metrobusiness in some of those areas, looking also at like self interest, own metrabusine, just to try to get it in a cropping system that we don't normally have, because we do a lot of lot of spring wheat, lot of corn in rotation and and it doesn't screw up that you
know where you're wearing your corn, soybean rotation. I could see where you're going to burn out. Metribuzin, if you keep using it every year.
grass rotations that we have in the dry lands are tough.
Yeah, yeah. Grass is the tough one, and that's where, hey. So I'll preface this one. So the one that I mean sometimes I well, I win the argument most of the times, or if any one of the farmers I work with, here's a laugh, you know, about how, how much back and forth we have on some of this. But crop rotation. Holy crap. Just rotate. If you have grass issues in the West, it's because you grow too much wheat and rotation. Grow something else. Grow, grow a glyphosate tolerant
crop. Be done with it. It is the best thing you can do to take care of your grass control issues is, is get some kind of if it's soybeans, corn, canola, just get get something. Or if it's something that you're using conventional grass chemistry, like clethodim as a pulse crop, or a sunflower or flax, or something like that, that's fine because you're spraying different timings than you would in your wheat. So crop rotation is a weed control tool without a question. And to me, is a non
negotiable thing. Once you have grass issues, you have to rotate
some of our worst areas would be if we can see a glyphosate in the summer once in a while, because otherwise those group one and group two products are just we're burning through them pretty fast when we don't have glyphosate in that rotation.
Yep. And it looks great when, when you do use glyphosate in the summer, those particular weeds,
it's all those fun things. You never know what. Never know what you're going to get when the phone rings, especially if you don't have their number saved. But he goes, last summer, I got a this glyph state thing works pretty darn good. And like, Where are you calling from? But I like it. It was northwest corner of the state. They had Roundup Ready soybeans for the first time, and were pretty impressed. All right? Jason, same, same suite of questions, I guess.
yeah that that rotation thing for us is where I run the into issues, is where I've got, just based on how far that farm sits, the fields sit from your farm, if it's a two crop rotation, I have the most probably. Comes if it's a three crop, they drop way down. If it's a four crop, I feel really good about what we're doing to manage it, just through the diversity of warm season broadleaf, cool season
broadleaf, warm season grass, cool season grass. So wheat, canola and soybeans are my three but when I get the fourth corn in there, that really changes a lot of stuff. So, I mean, I think there's so much focus on on soybeans, as far as a pre a couple things I do is I just, I just want to go and smash weeds right in the mouth, right out of the gate. No Mercy, thermonuclear. Drop it. So I I'm big on I use a lot of sulfanter zone. All my soybeans and my peas get matribusin with that. I
feel I get good foliar activity and good residual activity. If I've got Kosha up at the time and it's peas, I know I will drop paraquat in there as well. I'll do the same thing on soybeans. I have moved all my Dicamba application in with the pre burn down. It's the smallest kosher I contend with. And people kind of go, whoa. How much that going to cost, like, if you don't have to deal with it, and all you got to do is clean up with some Liberty later on. We don't do you want? You
want the stress earlier? You want it late? I'll take let's, let's get on it right now. And this last year, we actually used some residuals in front of cereals too, and because of weed pressure. And that worked out really well. I'm moving back in
my corn. I'm going to try to, almost all our week gets hppds and barley so I'm going to go back to true pre burn down with Atrazine, glyphosate and whatever type of product we're using to get on that stuff early we got, we kind of got behind that eight ball a little bit on some of that corn this year because we were so wet. So I don't seem to get much pushback on that, because I part of the reason that I'm hired, I can three farms that they have a lot of Kosher to deal with, so just
having me there to help them manage with it. If it makes it look better. It makes it harvest better. They're content with that. So we have to do what we have to do. In some cases, it's if you're looking at me to save you money. I'm also here because I can make you money. And then you just got to talk through those scenarios,
Gotta spend money to make money.
I mean, there's no doubt we'll have. The conversations will be, where can we it's, there'll be more discussions about where those places we can or should cut. And so I always like to lay out a like, this is the worst case scenario, and then it it's about if we can adjust. That means there's intense, just the intensity of scouting, and then I have to know that we're going to do what we said we're going to do in that time frame, because that's where things can
get out of whack. Well, we went and did this, and we couldn't get over there and do that. Oh, now we're in trouble. Now that little bit we thought we were spending is going to get more expensive.
All right, I had a couple questions left, but I'm seeing the time. I'm going to jump to the bottom of my list, and we're going to ask the uncomfortable question that Sarah and I are probably already tired of, and it hasn't really begun yet. So here's my disclaimer of the day at time of recording at November 18, 2024 3:01pm, Central Time. It still looks very unlikely that we will have Xtendimax or Engenia or tavium registered for the 2025 season. If that isn't a player
in your geography, I'm just curious. Have those conversations begun, and what does that even looked like? And I'm going to also buck the trend here, and we're going west to east, so we're starting with Kyle on this one.
Well, there's still plenty. One of my, one of my clients, throws a lot of soybeans and, and, like Jason had said, Uh, well, and, and Jeff too. You know, our pre program was full rate of ingenia, our metribuzin rates a little different. We were running third pound rates, self
entry zone, glyphosate in that burn down. And when we had all of that in there, we didn't really have a lot of we don't have pigweed there, so we're not really worried about say, like your group 15 is in the mix, but all we had to do is one one pass of liberty with a second touch up pass of liberty, you get just a few areas, and we absolutely had excellent control on our coach issues. So if we lose Dicamba as a tool like I still feel like that's a really critical part of. Our pre emerge
firm done and residual. So if we, if we lose Dicamba, that's going to be tough, because what you're allowed, eight ounces, 30 days before planting, that's just not going to do it.
You know, that's, that's, that's geography dependent. If you get less than 25 inches of rain, like we do. It's 120 days.
Yeah, there you go. So that's like, yeah, not going to work for us, yeah? So that's, it's going to be tough. So then, so then that's probably where for us, even though the group fifteens aren't as effective, let's say on couch show would be the main, main weed we're after. It's going to have to be introduced in there to have another mode of action. So mode of action and and that's definitely going to be a more
expensive mode of action to introduce. But to me, like that's if you're going to be successful in soybeans, you're going to have to have, you have to have all this stuff stacked. If you're not stacking all these modes of action, you're just not going to get the control you need.
How You about you Jason?
here's what's going to happen. Okay, it might not get written down, but it will get talked about. And the risk to me, I got guys that have Engenia in inventory because they, they went out and bought it last year, and we, we didn't, because of our pre mix was so good, they still got excess inventory of that. If that product isn't allowed to go on that crop, say, post, I will tell you that there'll be plenty of Dicamba that will go out in a pre emerge scenario, whether
that is those three products or others. And the risk to me is that time of the year is so much, so much cooler that I don't I don't put it on post emerge anymore. I wish that that label would have been a pre only. We would not be talking about this at all. We'd have like, Oh my gosh. I didn't realize it would be that good, because it is that good. So is that you don't have to edit this part out. But that is, I'm not
going to have any day. I did not have any Dicamba. I got sprayed foliarly This year at all, because it was all at a different time frame, and it worked so much better. And I rely on my glufosinate to tidy up things, and that that's the other part, is making sure you're doing everything possible to make glufosinate into the product that it is, so that you're not short changing it in any way, shape or form, because that's like, that's the backstop that we got now that's gone.
We're in deep trouble.
And that's, that's part of the uncomfort and hard conversations of you know, there's what's labeled and what's on inventory and what happens in the real world. So maybe we'll make a quick pit stop at my office, since as you quickly transition from Jason to Fargo type area, we do get to a lot more enlist beans as we go from primarily kosher into a much more water hemp ragweed territory, and we've and there's the those who grow extend, extend flex beans, it's going to
be a very hard conversation. Probably has been in seed sale season already, but those who grow enlisted. It hasn't been an issue for them. And so I probably standard operating procedure, but just just showing as we get more into this corner of the state and more into where waterhemp and ragweed dominates, and list platform is a much bigger foothold, primarily for
those weeds. So less of a difficult conversation throughout the winter months, maybe a quick pit stop in Kansas before Jeff's comments.
So my take on the current situation is that, well, first off, we're probably as a state 6040, ish in terms of enlist to extend on the mix. I think most of the guys that were on the fence and could be swayed from extend to enlist have moved so I don't think there's going to be any switching systems. The comments that I've gotten when I've kind of quizzed guys what their plans are, basically they're planning on liberty as
their post, right? Like that's their post plan to Jason's points and to your comment, what actually happens this summer? I'm sure we'll be able to tell after the fact, but at this point, I think you know those, those flex extend flex programs, are counting on liberty to carry the load. Post
which that doesn't make a weed scientist nervous, does it? Sarah, nah,
I love that answer, Joe, I guess we should look at it as job security. All
All right, let's finish in the eastern Corn Belt. Yeah, I
would say we're a bit like Sarah's. We probably have maybe a 6040, split e3 to extend flex, maybe. And it varies on the area. Pockets are going to be heavier e3 some pockets heavier flex. But we've been kind of, I guess, transitioning a little bit out of Dicamba, good, a good tool. But to Jason's point on the baggage of that in crop application and off target is, is challenging, especially in retail, and you know, that's just a tough situation. So we
are going to on our e3 platforms. We're going to we're going to lead this year with enlist Liberty tank mix. We've been seeing some more more variable control out of enlist glyphosate. And we think there's some reasons for that, that we're heading down a path that's not good. So we're going to try to lead with that tank mix post emergence on the flex beans, we're going to it's Liberty like Sarah, like way, that's what we got. So, so we did have a little, a little bit
experimental use of PPOs with Liberty last year. Didn't really seem to, I don't know, added a lot to it so, but you know, we've had this rate creep on liberty. You know, when you know, we started down this path, we were 22 ounces, and then we're 29 and we're 32 and guess what? We're we just met with some with BASF, and we're going to lead with 36 ounces this
year, right? So that's kind of telling you something. We know it's more environmentally sensitive on things, but that makes this concern, you know, where we have one site of action post emergence, so that's something we have to be smart about in terms of the residual down and overlapping residuals in crop.
So Jason Kyle, take note, because they get a lot more consistent humidity there than we do.
Yeah, I know I was thinking about that.
Now we have plenty of inconsistent control of liberty.
All right. Well, one final thing I did want to do is provide everyone a chance to let the listeners know where we can find them if you want to be found. And I know Kyle and Jason, you guys have got your all your handles at the ready. So we'll, we'll, we'll start with Kyle again. That was fun last time. So, so any social media handles, websites anywhere to find you? Yeah, so
social media. I'm only a very lightly active person there, but if you want to find me on every platform, it's
@OkkefromMuskogee. So it's, it's a play on my last name, so it's O, k, k, e, not ok, i e, but OK from Muskogee, you can find me on the socials, and then Jason and I also do this podcast called the agronomist happy hour together, which we've taken a few month hiatus because it's been a busy year, but we're getting back on that horse, and we'll be posting stuff here or putting new content out here shortly.
Jason?
Yeah You'll find me at Rock and Roll agronomy, R O, C K, the letter N, R O L, and then agronomy is spelt. Since I used Twitter to begin with, they limited it, so it's kind of spelled a little different. But if you start at R O, C, K, N, R O L, L, you'll find me on just about every platform there. And then, if you want to see what we do in the winter time, you just look up our website, agronomy on ice.com and what we do is the same thing we're doing here today, only in an ice house on a
lake. So it's you can nerd out year round.
And that question Jason is, do I have warm enough footwear to hang out in an ice house, to talk about killing pigweeds.
Oh yeah, yeah, okay, the food, the list of food, you won't go hungry, and there's plenty antifreeze, 12 ounce antifreeze.
All right then, Jeff, I'm sorry I didn't, didn't prompt you for this question. But any, any websites or social media, if people want to find you and reach out,
yeah, I would say the easiest way to be the Google Keystone cooperative, and you can get to some the website there, and then to some resources that several of us agronomists are on there. So,
all right, perfect. Well, I do want to thank all three of you for coming on fun conversation. Want to thank the listeners as always, and we will catch you next time on the war against weeds podcast. As always, we thank you for listening to the war against weeds podcast. Just. Another reminder, you can find our podcast hosted on the Crop Protection Network, or CPN, for short. So this is another great resource that's driven by extension scientists at different universities for pest
management. And with that, we will see you next week on the war against weeds podcast. You.