What is this weed?

[nrowles]

Can you tell what this weed is? Finally got around to mowing my clover and this weed was pretty heavy in spots and had so many fluffy seeds it seemed like I was in a snow storm. I'm assuming since I let this weed go to seed it may cause trouble next year in this clover plot? Any way to avoid it next year or let it go? After I cut it the clover underneath looked real good.

 

[Mortenson]

Hard to tell from pic but you may be looking at Canada thistles.

 

[Native Hunter]

Your picture isn't very good but it looks like Marestail (aka Canadian Horseweed) to me, and yes that is an infestation that will be back next year.

Mowing it low, just before it seeds will help next year but since a few individual plants mature later than the norm, it will be tough, because when you mow them too early, they will adapt and flower on a short stalk - so you still get a few seed, even though you eliminated most of them. It's going to take some effort to get rid of that much in a food plot.

 

[Native Hunter]

Here is a link to some pictures of Marestail so you can see if that is what you have. Click on that last picture and you can see the white fluffy seed.

https://www.nwvisualplantid.com/horseweed-canadian-fleabane-marestail-conyza-canadensis-c-glabrata/

 

[homerj]

Yep, that's marestail

 

[Mortenson]

I tend to agree. Things look different on my telephone than they do on the desktop. Now had you asked me if it was a buck or a doe, maybe I could've gotten it right!

 

[yoderjac]

Marestail has been my nemesis lately. Worse than marestail, it looks like marestail that has gone to seed to me! Don't use gly to try to kill it. Gly seems like fertilizer for marestail. There are herbicides you can use to kill it directly. I've opted to try to use less expensive herbicides and management techniques. I've been using 24D Amine in the spring when it is young. I'd estimate that is 60%-80% effective. Next, is mowing. You can't mow this like most broadleaf weeds to control it. If you mow too soon, it just grows back short and goes to seed. The key is to let it expend as much energy as possible growing through the summer and then mow it right before it goes to seed when there is not enough time for it to go to seed. Seed is not the only way it can grow. It can sprout back from last year's root system in the spring. I've been planting a smother crop of buckwheat and sunn hemp after spraying 24D in the spring. This combination of techniques and herbicide is working over a couple years for me. It has not eliminated it, but I never will because it is in our seed bank and grows along woods edges and in openings as well as in my fields. It has kept it from being a problem.

Others can tell you what they use to control it and how effective it has been.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[OakSeeds]

A cheap one and a more expensive one; Crossbow is mighty good stuff! Triclopyr

 

[Mortenson]

Strong gly will still kill it dead here if you can soak them small, before they get past about 6".

 

[ksgobbler]

Marestail is the devil. Its gly resistant here.

 

[yoderjac]

Marestail is the devil. Its gly resistant here.

I find gly makes things worse. It kills the competition for the marestail and really lets it take off. Mine occurred after a pine thinning when it abounded in the thin pines after a burn from the seed bank. It went from there to my RR soybean fields. With browse pressure on the beans but not the Marestail, the beans never canopied and the gly kept the other weeds from competing with the marestail. I'm slowly getting a handle on it.

There was an upside for me. I've been experimenting with sunn hemp and buckwheat mix instead of beans for my warm season annuals. I'm favorably impressed with the benefit for deer and the soil health along with allowing me to reduce my use of gly. Other warm season annuals I've planted for deer tend to get wiped out before they get established. While I had a lot of browsing, this mix seems to establish quickly enough to handle the browsing. At least so far...

I'm not sure I'll go back to soybeans. Time will tell how this mix and rotation does over time.

Thanks,

Jack