Knowing Is Only Half the Battle
February 12, 2009 Knowing that something is a problem and then doing something about it are two different issues completely. When I was in school at Ole Miss, I knew that I shouldn’t go to a fraternity party on the night before a test. But knowing and doing can be two different things.
At the Beltwide Cotton Conferences in Nashville last month, Dr. Don Parker, intergrated pest manager for the National Cotton Council, said that most growers in the Cotton Belt were aware that herbicide resistance exists, even if it hadn’t made its way to their farms. But that doesn’t mean growers are doing their best to keep resistance at bay.
According to Parker, a survey of Mississippi and North Carolina cotton growers revealed that more than 90% were aware of herbicide resistance issues, but more than 30% still used glyphosate alone to manage weeds in their cotton. It sounds like some of those growers would have been at the fraternity house the night before a test too.
For those 10% who aren’t fully convinced that herbicide resistance is a major problem, here’s what Dr. Kenneth Smith, weed scientist at the University of Arkansas, said during a seminar on herbicide resistance at Beltwide.
“The topic of resistant weeds is probably one of the most serious aspects of weed control that I have seen in my entire career. It has a major impact, and I spend a tremendous amount of my time now dealing with resistant weeds. I used to count my time that I think about this in hours per week – now I count it in months out of the year,” Smith said.
In retrospect, the cotton industry might have seen this coming.
“In 1968, we found the first evidence that weeds could be resistant, and today we have 66 species of resistant weeds. Significantly, 9 of them are pigweeds. In January of 2008, we had 300 resistant biotypes of resistant weeds to at least 19 herbicides, not just glyphosate,” Smith said.
Roundup Ready – Cotton’s (Borrowed) Gift
While Smith points out that there is resistance to a broad range of herbicides, glyphosate gets the big headlines because Roundup Ready cotton revolutionized cotton production, lowering fuel and other herbicide costs, providing broad spectrum protection and allowing conservation tillage to garner success.
“Since Roundup Ready, conservation tillage has increased by 200%, and Roundup Ready has allowed more acres to be farmed with less equipment and less labor. During this time, we have increased our farm size, decreased our labor force and our equipment, and left the cultivators behind the barn in the weeds. And we can’t remember the last time we saw a PPI herbicide incorporated,” Smith said.
As resistance spreads throughout the Cotton Belt, some of these past practices may come back into vogue, especially cultivators and older chemistries. When it first came out, glyphosate alone was considered a panacea for all weed problems – a gift to revolutionize agriculture once and for all. While glyphosate’s value to the industry cannot be overstated, its future will probably be augmented with a few older chemistries. As Smith said at Beltwide, glyphosate is not a gift – it’s just a loan.
Education and Implementation
Whether or not resistance is on your farm, now is the time for action. Talk to other growers and extension specialists. Listen to your crop consultants. Most importantly, use all of the tools available to protect yourself and your farm from resistance. In addition to university extension studies, Parker said the National Cotton Council and other industry organizations provide growers with helpful tools – but growers have to use them.
“From the National Cotton Council standpoint, what we want to do is to support educational efforts that are going to enhance herbicide resistance awareness and management. We have been working with Cotton Incorporated, and there are some management outlines on their website. There is also a weed module on the NCC webpage that is a very good interactive program that will help people realize how important resistant issues are.”
Caption:
Resistant marestail is among the 66 species of known herbicide resistant weeds in the Cotton Belt.
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