To cut or not to cut

[Yarg]

Hello all, the drill is finally available for this coming Monday so I can drill my rr soybeans. I am spraying today because it was advised that I would get best effect on Canadian thistle if sprayed in Bud stage. I am spraying a 2% gly phosphate. A lot of it is thick and over 4 ft tall. It is a mild day about 71 and I'm getting good spray coverage.

My question is when I drill on Monday would I be best to mow immediately after or just let the plants die and lay down naturally. I understand that glyphosphate works better when a plant is upright and healthy so will I have had the full benefit by Monday since there is no rain in the forecast? If not mowed it may be good deer preventative as I do have pretty good dear pressure. I will planting about 5 Acres. Thanks

 

[Ed Brodt]

Following

 

[Bill]

Your 2% Gly number is throwing me a bit. But if that equates to 2 quarts of 41% gly per acre I'm with you.

As for mowing after drilling I've never mowed but I have either left tall rye and weeds stand and or rolled them with a cultipacker. Either option will work. You're going to find that after drilling the field will look like you rolled poorly. About 50% of the weeds will be pushed over from the tires, coulters, openers and press wheels.

After 24 hours you should get a good kill. I've sprayed and drilled an hour later with no problems.

 

[Yarg]

Your 2% Gly number is throwing me a bit. But if that equates to 2 quarts of 41% gly per acre I'm with you.

As for mowing after drilling I've never mowed but I have either left tall rye and weeds stand and or rolled them with a cultipacker. Either option will work. You're going to find that after drilling the field will look like you rolled poorly. About 50% of the weeds will be pushed over from the tires, coulters, openers and press wheels.

After 24 hours you should get a good kill. I've sprayed and drilled an hour later with no problems.

Thanks Bill

 

[Tap]

Just my 2 cents...
I've been fighting Canada Thistle for quite a few years. I've come to realize that getting it under control trumps growing other stuff so herbicide selection and timing is vital. Choose an herbicide that will get the job done as your priority then decide what you can plant.
I'm having really good luck with Clopyralid3. But it will kill most broadleaf, but grains and grasses are unaffected. I'm to the point that most of my thistle can be spot sprayed. I just mix up a little window sprayer with C3 and dye and carefully target the thistle plant. The surrounding clover hasn't shown much die-off.
Job 1 is to kill the thistle. Don't take it lightly. Kill the thistle first, then tailor your choice of follow-up crop to what you can. Choosing the follow-up crop 1st, then trying to eliminate a weed is chasing your tail.

I've not had great luck with glyphosate on thistle. Yeah, it seems like it's dead, but it's just top-killed. The roots are still alive. C3 can be applied effectively all the way to bud stage. I think it kills better at bud stage than it does at rosette stage.
I wouldn't mow it unless it's brown-dead. I don't want to take any chances that there's still herbicide to be absorbed by the roots. IMO 2 days isn't enough.

 

[j-bird]

Thistle is a pain to get rid of as it has a massive root system. In many cases I have to spray it and mow and spray it and mow and spray it and mow.....you get the idea. I prefer to use crossroad/crossbow product and not gly and killing the younger the plant the better. The mowing forces the thistle to consume the energy stored in the roots and thus reduce it's ability to come back. 24 hours of a chemical on the plant should be fine, but even with a drill.....lots of thick vegetation may cause planting issues with the drill. I would spray it.....knock it down and wait for it to dry and then burn it off.....then plant what you can. You don't kill it and kill it all.....it will be back.

 

[Wild Thing]

I'm with Bill on not mowing. You sprayed it so you should be good to go.

I drilled beans into a cover crop of winter rye on June 1st:



We had a lot of wind so I didn't get around to spraying it until June 6th or 7th and this is what it looks like today on June 13th:



We got 3/4" of rain 2 days after planting and then nothing for the past 10 days until last night when we got another 0.6". The beans are doing just fine and the weeds/rye are gone. No mowing needed.

 

[Yarg]

Thanks for all your responses. I finished drilling the beans on Tuesday. Because the ground was so dry I should have taken off at least one if not both depth bands because I see way too many seeds. My 10-day forecast shows no rain lol.. wish I could have got em deeper.
I decided not to mow.. my Glyphosphate is doing its job.. going to keep my eyes on that thistle and spot spray the stuff off to the side of plot.

 

[Wild Thing]

Thanks for all your responses. I finished drilling the beans on Tuesday. Because the ground was so dry I should have taken off at least one if not both depth bands because I see way too many seeds. My 10-day forecast shows no rain lol.. wish I could have got em deeper.
I decided not to mow.. my Glyphosphate is doing its job.. going to keep my eyes on that thistle and spot spray the stuff off to the side of plot.

Seeing seeds on top seems to be the nature of the drill for me when planting beans. I usually try to drill them about 3/4" deep and also see quite a few bean seeds on the surface and wish I had drilled them a little deeper as well. On the other hand, I always have a good crop when all is said and done. A lot of those surface seeds will germinate when you get a little rain and the loose dirt settles around the seed. Don't lose any sleep over it. You should have a good crop.

 

[Yarg]

Seeing seeds on top seems to be the nature of the drill for me when planting beans. I usually try to drill them about 3/4" deep and also see quite a few bean seeds on the surface and wish I had drilled them a little deeper as well. On the other hand, I always have a good crop when all is said and done. A lot of those surface seeds will germinate when you get a little rain and the loose dirt settles around the seed. Don't lose any sleep over it. You should have a good crop.

Thanks for that encouragement! I have been spending a lot of my free time pushing dirt over visible seeds and picking up piles of seeds that Spilled Out from trash and planting them. There is no rain in the forecast but we get good amount of dew at night so my concern is all these beans that i can see or going to swell and then simply burn up, so I'm getting a lot of exercise lol trying to cover em.. oh and my cameras picked up a whole lot of turkeys helping out.. I hope they don't get sick cuz these are all treated seed.

 

[Yarg]

This is what I'm seeing as I walk. I want to find out if the seed treatments protect against drying out.. I collected all the varieties that I planted that were exposed to the Sun and seem to have dried but not cracked and I'm going to bring them home and plant and see if they germinate. Next time if the weather is showing no rain I want to take the depth bands off and get a deeper planting as I don't have crusting issues.

 

[Yarg]

I made a bag flag to try to keep the turkeys from scratching up seed

 

[Wild Thing]

This is what I'm seeing as I walk. I want to find out if the seed treatments protect against drying out.. I collected all the varieties that I planted that were exposed to the Sun and seem to have dried but not cracked and I'm going to bring them home and plant and see if they germinate. Next time if the weather is showing no rain I want to take the depth bands off and get a deeper planting as I don't have crusting issues.

I think if you get some rain before the turkeys get these seeds many of them will germinate.

 

[Tap]

I made a bag flag to try to keep the turkeys from scratching up seed

That bag would have absolutely zero effect on my turkeys. In fact, I keep a bag hanging in my yard as a wind indicator...turkey pay no attention to it.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

 

[Yarg]

So turns out I got a nice burn down with my 2% glyphosphate and I was out checking bean emergence which is slow because of no rain but look what I came across. brassicas are tough. Don't know if this was from the fall seed that did not Germanate or the ones that were flowering already set

 

[Yarg]

beans are pushing, good to know we've got rain coming Saturday and Sunday