Mike Cowbrough's Blog – October 2009 Archive (2)

The sight of nightshade's purplish/black berries in a "food grade" soybean crop is every producer's worst nightmare. They stain the seed and dramatically reduce the value of the crop. In theory, you would kill uncontrolled nightshade prior to harvest with either a herbicide (i.e. Reglone, glyphosate) or mother nature (i.e. a frost), the berries would drop to the ground, never go through the combine and the seed would be left unstained. Unfortunately this is a theory, and reality shows us… Continue

Field bindweed is an aggressive perennial weed that reduces crop yield and slows harvesting speed especially in soybeans and cereals. Eradication is impossible, but minimizing its impact in field crops is possible with a management strategy that includes a fall application of glyphosate at 1.5 L/ac (360 g/L concentration). The photo below was taken in late May of 2004 and compares field bindweed populations in the untreated… Continue