Q: Should I skip the pre-seed herbicide application?
A: As the long winter on the Prairies comes to an end, growers are starting to prepare for the 2023 growing season. With weather delays, many growers may be eager to get seeding and skip the pre-seed herbicide application. However, utilizing a pre-seed burnoff is a great way to start your crop in the right direction.
With drought being the main story of the 2022 crop year, it is important to apply a pre-seed burnoff to help conserve moisture by controlling any over-wintering, perennial and annual weeds.
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Weed competition is one of the greatest threats to the newly emerging crop as it fights for moisture, nutrients and sunlight to survive. A pre-seed burnoff helps eliminate any of this early season competition, allowing your crop to get a head start and choke out any weeds that may come later.
It is important to scout fields carefully for weeds in the spring, as there may not appear to be any at first glance, but upon closer inspection you may find tiny weeds just emerging. These are the ones we want to control. If there are no weeds present at the time you want to spray, a residual herbicide application can help mitigate the risk of weeds coming later when the crop is just emerging.
When heading out to the field with that first chemical application of the season, we want to make sure we are making the most out of our time and money. Scouting the field and identifying which weeds are present is key to selecting the best chemistries to target those pests.
With herbicide-resistant weeds, such as Group 9-resistant kochia, being a predominant concern across the Prairies, we need to be tank mixing multiple modes of action with our glyphosate. Using more than one mode of action along with rotating modes of action in your fields will help fight resistant weeds.
There are other aspects of a herbicide application that make it successful including herbicide rate, water volume and time of application. Always follow the label instructions and apply the correct herbicide rates. Use sufficient water volumes to get good coverage when trying to control small newly emerged weed seedlings. The addition of a surfactant can help with good coverage and penetration of chemical into the weed. Try to spray during warm days as much as possible and avoid spraying right after a frost.
– Lane Blanke, B.Sc., PAg, CCA, is a manager of agronomic solutions for southwest Saskatchewan with Nutrien Ag Solutions.
