News

Increased winter annual weed pressure in Upper Midwest

An extension weed specialist says a long mild fall in the Upper Midwest created the perfect environment for winter annuals to germinate.

Mark Renz at the University of Wisconsin tells Brownfield producers should be on the lookout for shepherd’s purse, pennycress and several species of chick weeds, horse weeds and pepper weeds.

“We’re expecting to see a bumper-crop of them due to the mild fall with good moisture that allowed them to germinate in the fall.  These species are going to flower really early in the spring and be a problem in no-till situations, late summer seedings of alfalfa that occurred last summer, as well as some of our thinning alfalfa fields.”

He says the good news is there’s a wide variety of control options.

“If you’re going to incorporate tillage in your production practice (before) planting corn or soybeans; if that tillage is well-timed and aggressive enough, it should work just great.”

Renz says for no-till acres, a well-timed burn down application should be very effective against these winter annual weeds.