S8 E4 - Burcucumber

long. It can intertwine, you know, especially in corn, it can easily intertwine around the stalks and actually start getting up over top the tassel area and actually spread over top the canopy. So it can be a very difficult weed to control, especially later in the season. Another thing about this weed, it is native to North America, so we can't blame anybody else but ourselves for this. One other features about it. It's a

the seed is about the size of a watermelon seed. It looks very similar to that, especially once it's a mature, fully mature kind of has that real dark brown or almost black appearance to it. It has a long dormancy period so it can it can stay in the soil for a number of years because of the seed coat. Another thing that we typically have problems with it is because it has a long germination phase as well. So it can start germinating relatively

early in the spring, or earlier in the spring, I should say. But also we can, it can continue germinating, you know, well, well into, you know, early parts of July in some, some cases. So, so it tends to, at least in our area, here in Pennsylvania, and I suspect it's probably similar in other other parts of the country that it really thrives in these, these moist river

bottom fields. It really, really likes moist areas. Now, that's not to say that it couldn't grow, you know, on on some of these, you know, the fields that are a little bit more like a clay knob or something like that, but, but it doesn't tend to tolerate drought too well, because it seems that, you know, during droughty periods, I know that especially the last few years, we've got to kind of drought during the summer, summer months, it tends to kind of really slow down its growth.

But then if we get some rains a little bit later in the season, it'll definitely, you know, pick back up and start to start us growth. So it's kind of struggles during drought periods, but it'll definitely, you know, can tolerate some, you know, dry dry temperatures as well. It is obviously very

competitive in corn and soybeans. I suspect it could be in other crops as well, but, but generally, if you're tilling and so forth, you know, in the cultivating, in the during the season, it would be, obviously, be killed during that process.

It's a very much of a problem, especially during the harvest season, especially with silage, for example, there's situations where, once it gets up and over the crop this time of year, there's a lot of silage being harvested here in Pennsylvania, in the mid Atlantic area, and it's just you start in one corner of the field, and it's like the whole field comes at you because you're going trying to have the chopper come through

the field. So it's a it's kind of goes back to that intertwining nature of the vine just come it's very difficult. And, you know, there's a lot of, lot of, you know, plugged

choppers this time of year, if the burcucumbers a problem. And another thing is, there's very few effective herbicides, and we'll get into that here, some of the research that we've been doing for the last number of years, and especially more recently, on some of the various products out there that have shown us some success.

Bill Kern, was, here at Penn State. We actually, you know, had some grad students starting on this back in the mid 1990s and that was kind of our first, first look at, you know, looking at Burcucumber, learning more about its biology and some of the different different phases of it in terms of, you know, what kind of tillage regimes and so forth, that that it causes the most problems in and we actually, you know, found that, you know, one, one thing about burcucumber, at least a seed, it

can actually germinate, since it's such a large seed, it can germinate from six inches deep. Now, the problem with that, though, is, since it has a large root and root reserve, that, excuse me, a seed reserve is that, you know, if you start to till it, you can actually cause this. This it can, it can be distributed through the soil profile, and then cause, what happens is it causes a different emergence profile throughout the

season. So actually, we typically recommend that no till because all the certain the seed is kept right there on the surface, whereas, soon as we start doing any type of tillage, it distributes that down through the soil profile, and you get emergence throughout, throughout, you know, more so throughout the season. And then it's not necessarily affected by any the herbicides that we have on, you know, that we have in

the in the field itself. So that's another, issue from a tillage standpoint, all right, so, so that that's something to consider. We did look at things like row spacing from the crops crop standpoint, and we really didn't find that it didn't have any effect on on, you know, Burcucumber emergence. It seemed like whether it was narrow rows or wide rows. It didn't really seem to matter. And then, and then another, another thing that we found is even more so, more recently here is with cover

crops. You know, we get a lot of questions about cover crops. And if a, you know, like a thick, say, a rye cereal, rye cover really, it just even that's not enough to suppress it, you know, because even if you have a, you know, four inch thick rye cover in the as I mentioned, the seed can actually come up from six inches deep in the soil. Well, it can easily push through that,

that that, that mulch as well. So, so really, that that's kind of another, another issue that we've, we've, we've been, you know, trying to look at as in that regard. But, but, yeah, as far as you know, the main, main crops that we've we we seeded, is primarily corn. We get a lot of questions about in corn, but

also we get a lot also in in soybeans as well. I'm not, not really hearing too much of it. Obviously, in forage crops, mainly because, you know, the the aspect of work, you know, routinely mowing that throughout the season, generally in small grain crops is not an issue. Because, you know, most of the small grain crops are harvested, so, you know, by, you know, July, mid July or so forth. So we don't really have any any major issues with that. So really it's primarily corn and

soybean. At this point,

able to to, you know, penetrate the seed coat. But again, I we, we just don't seem to have done a whole lot of research on that, and don't really have a good answer for that. But I would tend to doubt that probably that's not going to be, you know, one of the ways that it's, it's going to be, you know, hindered,

imbibe. It a lot, lot better, and it seemed to help, you know, provide better germination in some cases, but you're right. It it seems like, with, you know, trying to, you know, it's always amazing. You tell people it's hard to grow weeds, and they kind of laugh at you, but it's true. Trying to rear weeds in the greenhouse and whatnot, it can be challenging. And Burcucumber is one of those. It's definitely, definitely challenging.

Burcucumber. So that that's kind of where it gets its its strength is that seed. And hence the fact that it can, you know, germinate under, under, you know, from it from different depths. But then it also can, you know, germinate, you know, throughout the season. And because of that, it just causes the challenge of, of, when we get into the herbicides, you know, making sure we have these overlapping residuals, and these two past programs are going to be necessary in order to control

it. So that's probably one of the biggest challenges from the seed standpoint. And then, you know, just the other, other nature that we talked about, the fact that it's the vine, you know. So once, once it, it continues to wrap and entangle

itself in in the crop. It's, it's very difficult to to, you know, to manage after the fact, and then, and then, not only that, it has this, this cluster of seeds, or the it has the, it's a this, about anywhere between about 10 and 15 or so little seeds they form this, you know, mass of these burrs.

That's why, hence the name Burcucumber has these, these, these spikes on the seed coat, the paracar for the seed, and then, and then, just even trying to, you know, touch it, to do research, and so forth, can be challenging, because, you know, these burrs are very, very hard and stiff, and they cause, you know, obviously, you know pain to pain when we're trying to

work with them. But, you know, just, just interacting with them, they'll, you know, as you're, as you're working with them, they get entangled in your clothing and and, you know, animals, for example, if they're running through it, they can, can easily get that attached in their fur. And then that's, that's another way can be, you know, transferred, you know, transferred to other other areas in the field or outside of that

as well. So it's a very unique species in that regard that it's, it has all these kind of, these weird characteristics and very interesting characteristics that can make it challenging to work with.

during, during silage season. Here now that you know that plant is still still nice and green and very succulent and, you know, very, very strong, if you will, since it's already interacted or inner interwound with other other other plants, so it it's a formidable weed to mess with.

we did some work. We, you know, found some different herbicides that, you know, were pretty effective on it, and, and then, you know, then we kind of put it on the shelf for a while, and then we didn't really, really hear a whole lot about it, but in the scene about 10 years ago, then we really started getting

more and more calls about it. So then that's when we started, you know, doing, you know, more research on it with some of the newer herbicide products that are available, and, and, and, you know, tried to figure out additional ways, you know, that we can control us, but, but I still think, in some reasons or ways, why, why it's we had a research resurgence of it here recently is because probably Atrazine, you know, the whole thing with Atrazine, we're using less Atrazine, and then also,

you know, we're finding with With this enhanced degradation aspect of that. Now Atrazine is being degraded a lot quicker. So we don't get the residual out of it is, you know, as longer

residuals we had in the past. So between using the lower rates, you know, that that and then then this, this quicker degradation of it, that that's probably one of the, one of the main factors, and then another, another one is just the fact that, you know, I think, in the past, you know, you know, there's, there's been, you know, farmers that they probably had it and didn't maybe realize what it was, and and, you know, like any weed, you don't really notice it until it starts taking

over over fields. And once they they have it, it becomes a problem. And then, then, you know, not, not controlling it correctly, or managing correctly can really be, be a problem. And really, you know, it's one of these where we're going to talk about here with herbicides, is you need two passes. It's one of those where you cannot go in there with just a single, single pass of a pre herbicide and expect to get season long

control, because it won't happen. So I think in some cases, that's, that's, you know, what we're seeing as well is, is just this kind of, this neglect, you know, from just a poor management standpoint, and not, not, you know, doing using the two pass system, but also using the correct herbicides as well.

that were big problems in the 80s and early 90s. And then seems like as we've gone away from some of those group two herbicides that were the backbone of many programs and some of those older weeds are kind of starting to slip their way back into many field situations.

and river bottoms. Or if it gets introduced, it can thrive. So a couple of times a year, whether it's from eastern North Dakota or Minnesota, I'll be getting some Burcucumber questions, but it's, it's generally not one we focus on a lot. It's just kind of oddball, once or twice a year, maybe. But, you know, not, not a general area of focus for many folks,

kind of hanging out along Long roadsides. And you know, long rivers, and you know streams, three stream banks and places like that, and, and really, one of the, you know, the biggest differences, you know, or a couple differences, is the leaf shape. So Burcucumber is a more of a true Pentagon shaped leaf, where, where the kind of, the the edges of the leaf kind of connect, whereas the the wild cucumber is more of a true star shape. So you have that true defined star shape pattern in a

wild cucumber. And then also, then, then just the the fruiting structures, as we mentioned with Burcucumber, it has the kind of this cluster of seeds, about 15 seeds with these, these real thick spines on it. Whereas, whereas the wild cucumber is, is a more like a seed pod, a single seed pod, oh, probably about the size of maybe a ping pong ball, but it looks it's a little bit more kind of oblong in shape. And it has, you know, certain the seeds are much larger. There's, you know, probably half

dozen very large seeds within that, that pod. And then it has these, you know, smaller, smaller spines around, around the big, big pod structure.

when the seed of burcucumber is still immature. And one way to tell that is, if you peel back that seed coat on the burcucumber, you'll notice the it's more of like a cream color, kind of a light tanned cream color, and that that seed is immature, and we have found that, you know, through the ensiling process, that actually the heat and the other digest, or the other enzymes and acids and so forth during in that process actually can kill that immature seed, whereas, if that

seed is left to go to full maturity, where it's actually, As I mentioned, kind of bright, dark brown or black. Then, then those process and siling process will not, will not kill that. So that's that would be one of the management techniques that we would recommend is to, if you can silo it when it's when the seed is immature that's that's going to be, you know, one of your, one of your better bets as far as what is controlling it.

Another, another thing that we talked about earlier is, is the tillage regime, you know, as we mentioned about no till, the fact that no till, if the seeds do become mature, you know, during, during the first year, and then they're dropped, and then you're going into a crop in the second year by having it no till, the seeds are right there on the surface of this, of the soil, and they're going to tend to primarily germinate at a similar time frame, whereas, if you till it, then you'll

distribute those seeds throughout the profile, and then they're going to germinate at different times throughout the season, and then not be exposed to, you know, to the herbicides and other other management tactics that we have, you know, during that Season. So those would be kind of the non chemical means, in that case, of just from a management

standpoint. And then, and then, when we get into, you know, talking about herbicides, you know, in most cases, herbicides are still going to be the primary backbone of our weed management, control of burcucumber, and really it's, it's, as I mentioned, kind of alluded to here earlier, is you definitely have to have a two pass system. And when we think about two pass systems, you really need to start out with

full rates of a good soil, soil residual herbicide program. And in a lot of cases, we found that that like an acuron, or like a Lexar, or like a Corvus or trivolt you know, things that contain the, you know, the balance, the isoxaflutole or the mesotrione tend to tend to be some of the better, better

programs up front for pre and then. Yeah, adding, you know, some additional Atrazine to the mix as well, and in a lot of cases, I typically recommend at least, you know, a quart more of Atrazine, you know, with those, those initial residual products

that we're talking there. Now, what's just to kind of provide a little more detail about about Atrazine is, or the triazines in general is, you know, there's, there's been some years where I've tried to put a lot of lot of triazine up front, thinking that would would give us a lot better control deeper into the season. And then that wasn't necessarily the case. In fact, one year, I put two pounds or two quarts of Atrazine in

addition to two quarts of princip or simazine as well. So I had, you know, four pounds of a triazine, you know, plus, you know, some additional residuals in there as well. And I was still getting Burcucumber escapes, you know, by by middle of season. So, so, you know, I think our old, you know, thoughts of getting as much Atrazine in the mix, you know, like we thought about in the past that doesn't seem to be holding us true in at least in our research here at Penn State.

So, and I'm not saying completely get rid of Atrazine, but adding, you know, three and four, four quarts of, you know, the triazine products is not necessarily going to be the answer either. Okay, so, so anyway, it kind of goes back to some of those, those HPPD products, you know, as I mentioned, having isoxaflutole Or for mesotrione in the mix. Can really, can really help that as well. And then, you know, coming back with a post emergence herbicide is going to

be, you know, critical as well. And what I found with, with all the research I've been doing here the last number of years, is that really peak, you know, the herbicide has really been one of the best products, or I should say, the most consistent products, that I've found over over the last number of years, when I've combined all my research, kind of averaged it over the number you compiled the data I'm finding that particularly provides at least 90% control, or more

consistently compared to other post emergence, you know, foliar products that we have on the market, having that in the mix, you know, somewhere is seems to be, you know, somewhat necessary now, comparing that with something like, you know, like a mesotrione based post emergence product, something like a helix GT, or maybe like a realm Q or or maybe like a Caprino, or some other other HPPD type product you can get, you get some

control out of that as well. But you really, in most cases, only going to get maybe, maybe 80, 80% control out of those, just compared to that maybe 90% from, from, from Peak, all right, so that that's kind of where you need, you need to have those, those residuals in the mix, you know, from to get the season

long control that I'm talking about. And then, in addition to that, you know, you're probably, you know, going to have, you know, glyphosate or liberty or something in the mix as well, just to control some of those other other species, or the other other you know, if there's grass escapes or other other species escapes that you need to control. So that's kind of the general, you know, combination of herbicides. There another

thing to think about, too, is timing. You know, whether we spray that corn is around that 12 inch, you know, stage where, where, if we want to get some Atrazine in the mix, you know, that that can, you know, provide some, you know, additional slightly, some additional residual. Then what we're also finding too is that if you can wait a little bit later when the crop is around, that maybe, you know, 24 to 30 inches, really, you seem to get more season long or later, control of that as

well. You know, especially if we're using things like peak or halix or something that are accurate on GT, some of those types of herbicides. Now, having said that, there can be issues with, you know, drop nozzles, because really, the labels kind of stipulate you're supposed to start using Drop nozzles, especially with peak when it's around 20 inches tall the corn. So now you add another element in there to from a management standpoint, is, you know, what's thinking about, try to try to

control this. It's just another thing to think about from this, from a spraying standpoint. So one

corn is tasseling. And if you, if you read the label as it stands right now, about that v8 stage to the in corn is really the latest that we can sprig glyphosate and then, and then from there, the next time we can sprig glyphosate is, is. Harvest, a true harvest aid, you know, right, right there, once the crop is physically, you know, physiologically mature,

you know, beyond the black layer and so forth. So, so really, that's that would be an illegal application, you know, if we're using, you know, these drones, or even these high boy sprayers or whatnot. So, so that's reason I always, you know, push for the utility of making sure that you get good control of this. You know, during the season, we're using, using the 2 pass system so we can really, you know, alleviate that problem. So we're

not going to have that at the end of the season. And there, again, I think a lot of that is due to, you know, it just go, boils down to management. A lot of people want to just spray once, and then they think that's it. Then it's growing underneath the canopy, and all of a sudden it pops out over top the canopy, around that, you know, that that late, late, vegetative or early reproductive phases of the corn, and then then they're stuck. So

it's challenging. That's why we always try to, you know, explain that, you know, two pest systems are necessary with with the right products? Yeah, it

to dry down itself. But if by chance, it's still a little bit green, even, you know, things like 2,4-D, 2,4-D is not that great on it to begin with. It's certainly not that that great. You know, glyphosate is, you know, adequate on it. But again, when you have a 30 foot vine, it's not going to be that, that that effective, you know, at that time of year, you know, gramoxone would probably be about one of your better, better

options. But there, again, you know, spraying gramoxone over the top of corn, you know, as a harvest aid can be, you know, kind of challenging and as well. So, so that's reason we just keep, you know, continue to push on, you know, you need to do the right thing during the season, you know, to get, get the most effective control. Yeah.

would, you know, plug up the seed destroyer. I don't know.

peak itself as a herbicide. Because if you look at the label of peak, there are some, some, you know, rotational concerns with it and and really, one of the, one of the issues is, especially if you're going, you know, back into a non STS soybean the next year, especially if the typical use rate that we use, that I like to recommend, is a point five ounce rate of peak and, you know, that kind of sweet spot Where it does

a really good job of controlling Burcucumber. But the problem with that is then, then you kind of preclude you from, you know, legally rotating back to to a soy, non STS soybean. Now, having said that, you know, the more and more I talk to, you know, different, you know, farmers out there, they're spraying a half ounce a peak, and then all of a sudden. They're planting in their beans next year without having any problems. So I guess I think it's one of these things where

we need to be careful. It's going to be dependent upon soil type as well. So yes, there may be situations where you can get away with it, but there's other either soils or weather, environmental conditions, that won't allow you to get turn around that quickly and plant like a non STS beam. So just be aware that when we're dealing with the whole utility of peak. So kind of what I've done is kind of split the difference in

my recommendations. So I would, I would recommend using a quarter ounce of peak and mixing that then with something like a helix GT or a realm Q or a Caprino or something like that. And then at least you're getting, you know, the HPPD plus the ALS herbicide, the in the peak. That's kind of like the sweet spot, if you will. You know that generally gives probably 85 plus percent control, maybe 90% control, in

some cases. But yet, then it still allows you, then to rotate them to a non STS being then, you know, the next year without, you know, from a rotational standpoint.

Pennsylvania, through through, through Nebraska area. So that that's kind of what I refer to, you're right, and it can slightly, you know, very, you know, in different regions, but, but that's the one I'm kind of talking about right now. But still, that that's an issue that needs to be dealt with is rotational concerns with peak. So just, I just wanted to point that out before we get, you know, too far along here, you know, before we get out of the discussion of herbicides and corn.

goes, you know, with our our research and other other type of information and collect Over the years.

again, you have to come back post emergence. And really, I found that that here again, another group to herbicide, you know, classic is, is one of the better, better herbicides post emergence, when it comes to, you know, soybeans. And I would

typically recommend, you know, classic versus synchrony. So if you're going to use use, especially if you're in a non STS being we're not using a, you know, a bolt bean or one that one has some STS tolerance in it, but, but really, you know, the use of classic, because you can get the rates a little bit higher on that, because it's really the classic really the classic component, versus the, you know the thifensulfuron is

kind of the workhorse. And in some cases, you're going to need to go up to at least maybe two thirds of an ounce, if not three quarters of an ounce. And I realize that that, you know, gets people a little bit nervous because of potential crop injury, but, but you know, that's really what it's going to take, you know, to control, you know, get season long, you know, the rest of the season long control of Burcucumber,

especially in the soybean crop. So what I typically recommend is something like, you know, classic, you know, plus glyphosate, you know, to at least get the good control of, and then you have the residual air from, from, you know, the chlorime you're on, you know, through the. Rest of the season. And as I mentioned, two 4d is really not as as strong of a herbicide on it. So something like, you know, enlist beans are really not going to be, you know, a great, great help to us.

You know, from the from the 2,4-D aspect, obviously, the glyphosate can give us some full your control, even liberty, you know, does a half decent job on, you know, fully your control. But it's really that you need that residual component in there as well. So anyway, that's kind of the take on on the soybean

end of it. As far as the herbicides, it seems like, as we mentioned before, the group two herbicides, you know, classic, in this case, seems to be one of the more consistent ones in that crop.

know, especially a two PASS program, you know. And then you think about other other, other tactics, like no till, and if you can do silage, things like that can be, can be useful and keeping it managed. And again, because it's an annual you want to stop seed production. So that's the biggest thing is, once, once you get seeds established in the field, or

continue to be you'll see them there for years to come. In fact, the first time we started doing Burcucumber research here at our our research farm here, about 10 miles outside of State College, we actually, you know, scattered some seed and in the in the plots to try to get some, some Burcucumber established in our field that had, that previously did have had none.

And what's interesting is, you know, here we are, 25 some years later, and I'm still finding burcucumber growing up there every so often in that field that we brought in 25 plus years ago. So it's, it's the seeds, once they get it, get in a field like I say, they're, they're, they're long because of their seed coats and whatnot, they can maintain in a field for for quite some time. And especially, you know, it's not every single

seed is going to germinate. You know, it's like any other weed, but, but there's going to be enough of them to continue to push through, throughout the throughout from season to season, you're going to have a, gonna have a problem once, once it's once you let it go. You know, for a number of years, going to be a problem for years to