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A complex year ahead for weed management

A multi-pronged approach to weed management is important. University of Missouri’s Kevin Bradley says farmers can’t solely rely on herbicides for the future of weed control.

“We need integrated approaches and that includes cover crops. We’ve done plenty with cover crops and we’ve done weird things like electricution, which we’ve been looking at for many years. On-combine seed destruction devices, too. All of these things are outside-the-box thinking, but we’re going to have to get them inside-the-box.”

He says weed management will be complex due to EPA’s updates to herbicide labels, registrations and requirements.

“Be ready for this in the future. It’s not going to be something that’s just 2023, but way past that. We’ve never had to deal with this before.”

The Enlist label was updated in 2022 and Bradley anticipates atrazine to be next. Bradley was part of the University of Missouri Extension’s Crop Management Conference.