Was just today considering my ability to apply herbicides. I plant (drill) clover and winter rye, and some oats and brassica in late August each year. The following year I wait until July to roller crimp my winter Rye which provides a nice mat of mulch.......and that is the first real time that I have to apply herbicides to my clover....as I do not want to terminate my rye until I make good mulch with it. Though I do some spot spraying of thistles and mullein in June.
This year I primarily applied 5 oz/acre Imox in July which seemed to work quite well....in spite of some plant back concerns. I always thought that Imox should be applied to smaller weeds in spring. I also flail mowed some Marestail which appeared after rolling my rye. Mowing seemed to take care of the bulk of that problem. And I also applied Glyphosate to areas I wanted to plant a brassica mix......and that worked out most satisfactory. I finished drilling my rye/ oats / clover / chicory blend a few weeds ago.
I do have some various weed outbreaks now.......but feel I am unable to do much about them unless I were to spot-spray. Always have a concern with chicory, clover and grasses........or one or the other that will be terminated if herbicides are applied now. Somewhat relying on a good frost in the next few weeks to take care of weed issues going into fall.
I am tolerating somewhat more weeds in my plots than I used to......but my "crowd 'em out" and crop diversity practices......despite a short window for herbicides seems to be working for now. I do wish for herbices to control both broadleafs and grasses that would not harm winter rye, clover and chicory.......and has short plant-back characteristics.....but that is unlikely.
I also need to consider more use of 24D (and 24D-B too). Planning ahead for next year....based on what I learned this year. Always a new curve ball each year.
