Two-Pass Programs

With spring rapidly approaching, some farmers are trying to cut expenses for the 2023 growing season. I often hear the questions, “Do I really need to spend money to apply a pre-emerge chemical in front of my crops?”, and “Should I add a residual to my post application?” The answer is yes to both questions for consistent weed control on your farm!

There are many areas in our trade territory which have weeds that are tolerant or resistant to many of our post applied chemicals. Many weed populations, such as water hemp, have only one post-emerge option, and that option is not the same in all geographies. Tillage may kill many emerged weeds before planting, but with no-till being the tillage system of choice in many areas, we must rely on chemistry to take care of our weed control systems.

With no new chemistry on the market this spring or foreseen for the next few years, it makes it important to use as many modes of action as practical to keep weeds under control to slow resistance to the chemistry that we have available. Many of the top-performing pre-emerge chemicals offer multiple effective modes of action. Following up with a post-emerge chemical will take care of any escapes from the pre-emergent program. Adding another layer of residual at post-application will give us a chemical program offering many effective modes of action to control the resistant/tolerant weed populations.

Yes, you may get by without using a diverse chemical program for a period of time, but it will eventually catch up. Larger populations of weeds that are resistant/tolerant to the chemistry available on the market today, and a train wreck of weeds could be the result. 

Talk to your local SFG agronomist to help with a good two-pass chemical program that will add value for your acres in 2023.