Terminating weeds

I have posted about this plot before and have narrowed my plan down to 2 options. The plot is 4 acres and I rotate corn and beans in it. I’ve been struggling with pigweed and both ragweed and giant ragweed in the plot. Which of the following options do you think are best for next year.

OPTION #1
Till the plot under in the spring,wait about 3-4 weeks for weeds to germinate, spray with 2-4D or 2-4 D Gly mix. Wait another 3-4 weeks and till again to bring weed seeds to the top and let them germinate. Wait another 3-4 weeks and spray again with 2-4D or 2-4D gly mix. About mid August till and plant the whole thing in winter rye seeded heavy. Then the following spring plant beans or corn no till once the rye gets about 12-14″ tall roll and spray with gly.

Option #2
Till in spring and plant corn. Then before corn gets 6″ tall spray with 2-4D Gly mix and hope the residual from the 2-4D can keep the weeds at bay until the corn can shade them out. The good in this one is I don’t have to let the plot sit for a year with nothing in it until fall, the bad is that I don’t get as good of weed control without having several sprayings on young weeds that germinate later in the year.

Both options will help to terminate ragweed and pigweed which is the number one goal for this upcoming year. I really don’t want to switch to anything with dicamba herbicide. I’ve read too much negative about it. Mostly that is it very volatile and spray drift is a major concern. I’m not at the farm all the time to spray when conditions are absolutely perfect.

I don’t envy you trying to do weed control in a food plot.

We’ve been plaqued with some kind of miserable weed here in our garden at home that grows to about 20″ and tops out with bunches of small yellow flowers I went out at mid summer and literally pulled this stuff by hand…the entire garden and its was back in a month. I finally mowed the garden off and called it quits. Next spring I plan to buzz it with round up before I till, then wait a month and hit with the round up again and wait another couple weeks to till and plant.

You mention pigweed. I have never had pigweed in the garden until this summer but was able to just pull it roots and all before it got huge. I used mulch from a community source to add some nutrient to the soil last spring and won’t be using that from that source again.

Can you do a prescribed burn?

blackbay wrote:

Can you do a prescribed burn?

Possibly, but after fighting these weeds(pigweed and ragweed) for several years there is so much seed in the seed bank that I don’t think a burn would terminate it. That is the main reason for option #1 of tilling it up several times and getting the seed out of the depths of the soil.

As much as I think it would be nice to not lose a year of corn productivity, I think Option 1 is the way I’d go. Bite the bullet and try to kill as much of the seed as possible. See if you can get it under control and this way you sacrifice a year versus having to fight it year after year.

And even then, I’d be tempted to plant corn the following season so you have the 2-4-D option and then you kill it yet one more time the following year.

Regarding burning, I tried burning a weedy clover plot for the first time this past August. I killed the plot with Roundup twice and then burned it. I will be very interested to see going forward if this seems to have killed more seed that was lurking in the soil and results in a visibly cleaner plot when I do replant it.

My impression was that fire burned all that dead grass very quickly and I have trouble believing it got hot enough to destroy seeds even 1 inch deep in the soil, but that’s just my impression. We’ll see come spring what pops up.

I will say that the burn was a PITA because you need so many conditions to be right at once. Plot must be dead enough to burn, you need the right wind and some wind but not too much wind, dry, but not dangerously dry, etc. Tough to get all the boxes checked and then have time to do the burn unless you live on the property.

Grouse

Plant Liberty Beans in the spring. Mix your tank with Liberty link herbicide with a pre-emerge with S-metolachlor in it for some residual. I had a giant ragweed issue until I switched herbicides this year. I had weed free beans for the first time in 4 years. It smoked them.
If you want to do corn, do liberty corn. Ask a friend with a RUP license to get you some Acuron. Smokes everything, has atrazine, generic Callisto, s-metolachlor and bicyclopyrone in it. I have not tried this for corn personally, but from what I’ve been told, plant, spray and walk away…..
If no access to Acuron, you can get s-metolachor, generic Callisto and Liberty without a RUP and I’m sure that will be plenty good.
Pre-emergents will save you a lot of headaches, it did for me.

whitetails4ever wrote:

Plant Liberty Beans in the spring. Mix your tank with Liberty link herbicide with a pre-emerge with S-metolachlor in it for some residual. I had a giant ragweed issue until I switched herbicides this year. I had weed free beans for the first time in 4 years. It smoked them.
If you want to do corn, do liberty corn. Ask a friend with a RUP license to get you some Acuron. Smokes everything, has atrazine, generic Callisto, s-metolachlor and bicyclopyrone in it. I have not tried this for corn personally, but from what I’ve been told, plant, spray and walk away…..
If no access to Acuron, you can get s-metolachor, generic Callisto and Liberty without a RUP and I’m sure that will be plenty good.
Pre-emergents will save you a lot of headaches, it did for me.

I have thought about going this option and looked into it, but liberty seed is about 5 times the cost of what I am planting now and the herbicide is also quite a bit more expensive. I have not ruled this out though. One other down side is again I have about 4-5 years of battling these weeds so the seed bank I would assume is pretty heavy. I would have to run liberty seed and herbicide for 4 years to get all the seed out of the seed bank. That cost increase over 4 years would be substantial.

As for the pre-emergent, I have looked into that also and am considering that if I go with option 2, although 2-4D has residual which is just as beneficial I would think.

I appreciate the idea!