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Iowa State Herbicide Guide offers weed management strategies

Waterhemp is the biggest problem weed in Iowa.

Waterhemp is the biggest problem weed in Iowa.

As herbicide resistance continues to spread, producers will need to employ “a greater diversity of tactics” to combat resistant weeds in 2015.

So says Iowa State University Extension weed scientist Bob Hartzler. Hartzler and his ISU colleague Mike Owen have recently updated the Herbicide Guide for Iowa Corn and Soybean Production for 2015.

“Every year there’s a slew of new products that generally are mixtures of some of the older herbicides. Most of them can play a good fit in a weed control program,” Hartzler says. “But it’s really key for the growers to determine what the active ingredients are in those herbicides and also determine what the rates of those ingredients are at the use rate of that new product.”

Two new weed control options are working their way through the regulatory process—Monsanto’s Roundup Xtend soybeans, with resistance to dicamba, and Dow’s Enlist corn and soybeans, with resistance to 2,4-D. But Hartzler says their real impact is at least a year away.

“The dicamba crops, those are fully deregulated, but the new dicamba products have not been approved by EPA yet. And because of foreign approval of the Enlist crops, there’s going to be limited availability of the Enlist corn for 2015.  So those will most likely have their impact starting in 2016,” Hartzler says.

The Iowa State Herbicide Guide is available on the ISU Weed Science web site.

AUDIO: Bob Hartzler

Link to news release

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