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South Dakota farmer mulls input, technology choices for 2017

Farmers have input choices for 2017 they haven’t had before.  South Dakota farmer Brandon Wipf says the addition of Xtend technology will help fight glyphosate-resistant weeds.

“There’s no one who has absolutely no resistant weeds on their farm anymore,” Wipf told Brownfield Ag News, “and so we need a lot of tools to attack this problem.”

Wipf, in the northeastern part of South Dakota, has a challenge controlling kochia and water hemp.  He’s currently deciding whether he’ll add the dicamba tolerant Xtend soybeans to his weed control rotation of Roundup and Liberty.

“It’s each farmer’s job to decide what sort of weed pressure they’re seeing, what types of weeds there are, which chemical’s going to work the best there in deciding what’s best on their farm,” said Wipf.

The primary part of Wipf’s decision will be the cost benefit of using the newly approved Xtend system.

“They need to look at the cost of the seed, but also the cost of the chemicals that you’re going to have come back with later,” he said.  “Now more than ever, farmers are watching the bottom line, so it’s going to be one of the bigger decision factors for guys this year.”

This year, Wipf had soybean yields in the mid-fifties and corn yields around 185 bushels an acre.

AUDIO: Brandon Wipf (5 min. MP3)