A year for fat hen – Farmers Guardian – Darryl Shailes
The increased area of spring crops teamed with poor herbicide performance resulting from spring drought conditions has seen broadleaved weeds take off this season ...
Problem species including fat hen, poppy and mayweed are particularly prevalent this year, says Laura Crook, weed ecologist at Rothamsted Research.
“I also saw a bad case of chickweed in spring wheat. The fact there are fewer winter crops and an increase in spring crops being grown this year will be favouring the spring germinating weeds.”
Black-grass
However, the rise in spring crops has helped with black-grass control, she says.
“Black-grass does appear to be at lower levels this year, probably due to the reduction in winter sown crops and the drought. There is black-grass present in spring crops but it tends to be lower in the crop canopy at the moment. I have also seen a big problem with wild oats in crops this year, particularly in spring sown barley.”
Ms Crook says now is the time to hand rogue grass-weeds or spray them off in particularly bad patches.
“For broad-leaved weeds, the best practice at the moment would be to spray off particularly bad patches or pre-harvest desiccation to prevent seed return, especially as broad-leaved weed seed is more persistent in the soil compared to grass-weeds.
“Considerations for next season would be to ensure a good rotation which will in turn use a range of herbicide modes of action to assist with control and resistance.”
Root crops
In root crops, phone calls from growers struggling to control fat hen with the usual herbicide mixes are at an all-time high, says Darryl Shailes, Hutchinsons agronomist.
“Weed control in sugar beet has been a real headache with the dry, hot and frosty weather mixed with some gappy beet crops,” he says.
“The lack of rain to activate any residuals and then having to switch away from the likes of Betanal maxxPro when farm stocks had been used up has caused some real issues.
“The use of less active materials and lack of timeliness due to weather, reduced spray days and limited farm spraying capacity has really taken its toll, and I think we may see more fat hen and other weeds in crops than we would normally anticipate.”
Mr Shailes adds that in future, significant changes to sugar beet weed control strategies will need to be made, using more residuals, targeting smaller weeds, shorter gaps between applications and focusing on timeliness.
“Weed control in potatoes has also been an issue,” he adds.
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