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Farmers aren’t winning the weed resistance battle

An agronomist says farmers in the mid-South are still losing the battle against weed resistance.

Kevin Ryan with Stine Seed says 10 years ago farmers in this part of the country didn’t know what pigweed was – let alone know they had an issue with resistance.  “Unfortunately we found out by spraying 5 or 6 products and the weeds weren’t dead,” he says. 

He tells Brownfield farmers had to find innovative ways to battle resistance.  “It’s critical that we rotate not only crops but we rotate herbicides and change our chemical mix every single year,” he says.  “By changing chemistries on every corn crop or every bean crop it naturally leads to less resistance.”

And while they’ve come a long way – he says growers still need new technologies.

AUDIO: Kevin Ryan, Stine Seed