Palmer on the Move
If you’ve been keeping up-to-date with our blog, then you are aware of Iowa State Extension’s article tracking Palmer Amaranth and its move into Iowa. Recently, Iowa State updated their count of infestations to 14 counties; including Washington, Muscatine, and Cedar. While Iowa State Extension is doing a really great job of tracking the move, it would be unrealistic to think that they could possibly identify every single plant that is out there. This means Palmer may be in a field in Johnson County, completely headed out with viable seeds and about to be strewn through the back of a combine. This is bad news for us.
If you have driven through the countryside this year you can tell a big difference between now and last year; waterhemp is running rampant. Can you imagine what next year will look like? Now add Palmer into the mix who is waterhemp’s bigger, badder, and much more aggressive cousin.
While there are many ways that Palmer can be spreading into the state, Iowa State Extension Agronomists have identified the purchase of contaminated CRP seed. This seems to be possible because Palmer Amaranth is not listed as a “noxious weed.” In case you were not aware, Iowa has a noxious weed law that is in place to protect landowners from weeds entering their land from another source; i.e. adjacent fields, road ditches, someone’s lawn. Each county has authority from the state to destroy such weeds and charge landowners for that service if they failed to take care of the problem themselves. In conjuncture with the Iowa Weed Law, there is an Iowa Seed Law in which these noxious weeds are listed into two categories (primary or secondary) which determines how much of these weed seeds can be present in other products, such as CRP mix. Since Palmer is not currently listed as a noxious weed, its presence can go undetected in such items.
The good news is a lot of growers are already tailoring their herbicide programs to extinguish waterhemp, which are also the same types of programs that would tackle Palmer. However, the amount of uncontrolled waterhemp throughout numerous fields suggests some of these herbicide programs are not being implemented correctly.
Some things that you need to evaluate your program on is:
•Did you put down a pre-herbicide? You should. Don’t even question whether you should anymore, the answer is going to be yes.
•Did you spray when you needed to or when the weeds were coming back? Contrary to popular belief these are two different times. If you are applying your herbicides at the right time, no targeted weeds should ever emerge onto your fields. THAT IS THE ULTIMATE GOAL: NO WEEDS, EVER! We believe that we (as a sales team) need to shift our thinking to this as well.
Although there was a time where we could spray weeds that were 6, 8, or even 12 inches and still get a good kill. That time has passed. Trying to kill weeds that size today, makes success nearly impossible to obtain. Not to mention, we have seen giant ragweed so thick that it canopies and protects smaller plants below; effectively letting a new round of weeds come through after the bigger ones are killed off.
If you struggled with weeds all spring and summer, we would highly encourage you to consider a fall herbicide application, especially if you had waterhemp get away from you. You need to stay ahead of the weeds and not let them get to the point of hurting your yields. A truly clean and superior herbicide program may cost more up front but it could save your yields.Not to mention how expensive 3, 4, or even more passes will be if you decide not to implement a quality herbicide program and have to try to recover from weed escapes. The mindset needs to be shifted from “let’s deal with the problem when the weeds arrive” to the proactive approach of “let’s make sure they don’t.”
For more information on establishing a strong herbicide program, chat with a Stutsman Agronomist.