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In my last post, I reviewed some recent research that suggests one of the best ways to delay the evolution of herbicide resistant weeds is to use mixtures of effective herbicides.
I’ve heard some of my colleagues lament the fact that farmers are not adopting this relatively simple practice. But implementing this practice is much easier said than done.
Farmers aren’t just growing one crop, they’re usually rotating multiple crops on any given field. And they never have the pleasure of controlling just one weed species either; it is common for 4 to 10 weeds to be potentially problematic in any single field.
Because of cost and rotation restrictions, it is difficult to implement a truly effective herbicide program to proactively manage herbicide resistant weeds. If we concede this, I think there are two things we must consider as we develop proactive herbicide resistance management strategies in the future.
First, we need to prioritize the weeds and herbicides that most warrant a proactive multiple mode of action approach.
Second, as I said in my last post: “at some point, we must stop looking to herbicides as the solution to a problem created by herbicides.” … We need to include non-herbicide control tactics in our proactive resistance management strategy.
Read full, original post: The cost of preventing herbicide resistance
