I have been doing plots for 14 years now. I used to plow every year. Last 5 years I have been just discing after rape and wr planting, dragging, and cultipackin. All of a sudden the last 2 years my plots look terrible. Instead of the beans/ rape choking out the weeds, it's the other way around.
Whats going on with these weeds?
- Thread starter ruskbucks
- Start date
That's a 2 acre bean field sprayed for the second time this year.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Bottom plowing is a form of weed control, but it introduces oxygen into the soil speeding microbial burning of organic matter and destroying the tilth of the soil. Highly fertile soils can tolerate more tillage abuse than marginal soils and still perform well. Planting the same crops and using the same herbicides year after year, especially if used improperly, can cause herbicide resistance. Timing of herbicide application with respect to the age of the weeds can be a factor as well.
Like Swiffy, I can't tell much from the picture in terms of the specific weeds.
Thanks,
Jack
Like Swiffy, I can't tell much from the picture in terms of the specific weeds.
Thanks,
Jack
The picture is 3 days after I sprayed the second time. I sprayed the first time when the beans were about 4 inches tall. It looked great then. Then it grew into this. The weeds are mostly types of grasses. It doesn't help that the deer hammer the beans so hard it allows extra light in but I've never had it this bad. On the right side is beans I hit 3 times with gly, they look better but still full of weeds.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
I'm not sure about your location, but changing deer densities can have an impact as well. When I first started with beans, my partners didn't think I knew what I was doing. We ended up with a field of weeds. The next year I put up an e-fence on one small field and let the rest unprotected. The difference was huge and I was using the browse resistant Eagle forage beans. Protected beans were too tall and thick to walk through. The unprotected beans were naked and did not come close to forming a canopy. I needed to get to between 5 and 7 acres of Eagle beans before they would canopy unprotected.
Timing and weather also played a role. Cool damp soil can really put a hurting on beans. But if I plant early, does are starting to stay in thick cover getting ready to drop fawns and the beans get a head start. Once fawns are up and about, does just hammer the beans. The question is whether they are established enough to withstand the browsing at that point.
I found there is a tipping point at that confluence of the acreage planted, deer densities, native food available, weather and fawning time. On one side of the tipping point beans canopy in time and dominate. On the other side, they don't canopy and weeds prevail.
In years things tipped toward weeds, gly use favored Marestail which is a weed naturally resistant to gly and I had an outbreak. I have since switched to a combination of buckwheat and sunn hemp for my summer stress period. Deer use it when needed but both are very quick and competitive with weeds and canopy without post emergence applications of gly. This has been helping with the marestail control to some degree although I am planning on moving to a liberty clone for burndown to help more.
I find I'm getting my summer stress period covered well with less time and cost and herbicide than when using beans. Things may be different for guys up north who plant beans for the pods in fall and winter rather than summer forage. This approach may not be applicable.
Thanks,
Jack
Yes 2 acres of beans isn't enough. The only time they were able to grow over a foot was with Eagles. I might have try Sun hemp like Jack does. This weed problem is in my rape field too, usually the rape shades the weeds out and it looks really good. This year you have to look for the brassicas in the field of grass.
Dogshooter
5 year old buck +
Just a thought....
Looks like a sedge to me and not a grass. Yellow nutsedge maybe? Pull a stem out and if the base of the stem is not round (triangular shape, won’t “roll” between your fingers) then it is a Sedge. Sedge thrives in wetter ground. We have had pretty timely rains and wetter than normal conditions where I am at in Wisconsin earlier this summer. Seems like the sedge in a couple of my plots has really been bad this year, at least through mid July.
In my experience it takes a pretty stout mix of Gly to get a good kill on sedges. If not strong enough you tend to piss it off.
Could be part of what you have going on here.
Looks like a sedge to me and not a grass. Yellow nutsedge maybe? Pull a stem out and if the base of the stem is not round (triangular shape, won’t “roll” between your fingers) then it is a Sedge. Sedge thrives in wetter ground. We have had pretty timely rains and wetter than normal conditions where I am at in Wisconsin earlier this summer. Seems like the sedge in a couple of my plots has really been bad this year, at least through mid July.
In my experience it takes a pretty stout mix of Gly to get a good kill on sedges. If not strong enough you tend to piss it off.
Could be part of what you have going on here.
It would appear your soil is telling you something.
What are you suggesting. I tried to do good by not plowing. Soil went oh went from a 5.5 to a 6.8 after years of lining. I fertilized as test said, everything was optimum or high except for potash.
I'm in Rusk county WI. I think you might be on to something. I planted rape 7/4 then we had 5 inches of rain( could be good for weeds) bad for rape and beans. I did see a few patches of nutsedge. It was there but not to bad.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
He may be right that your soil may be telling your something, but there is a much bigger picture than soil. Avoiding deep tillage is a good thing for your soil but that is only a part of the answer. And, when you don't use a plow for weed control, you need to use herbicides. They bring their own set of risks and their own effectiveness. When you minimize tillage, you need to be smart about the crops you select and the mix. I haven't fertilized for quite a few years. A soil test may say I'm low on a particular nutrient, but that fertilizer recommendation is designed for a farmer trying to maximize yield which is not a good objective for deer management. Keep in mind that "weeds" like fertilizer too!
I'm trying to do QDM but I'm probably undersized for much success. By like small property owners, I also have hunting and attraction objectives. For my feeding plots and QDM goals, the key is providing quality food when nature does not. I want crops that are available during stress periods. If I plant an ice cream crop that deer love, when deer densities are high, they may wipe that out while I'm trying to establish it and ignore native foods that are available and just as good or better quality. Then when the stress period rolls around, I've got nothing to offer. Soybeans are a good example of that for me.
I've switched to sunn hemp and buckwheat. Why? There are a lot of factors involved. First, when I got between 5 and 7 acres of Eagle beans, they would canopy, but to get there I was spraying gly for pre-plant burn-down and then probably twice post emergence. That is expensive both in money and time but it did cover my summer stress period. Then we did a pine thinning and controlled burn and guess what? Marestail sprouted up from the seed bank in the pines and went to seed. We don't have a gly resistance problem in general in our area from over use as I'm not in big Ag country, but Marestail is naturally resistant to gly. Once the seed got into our fields, I had weed competition from Marestail along with the browse pressure (although by this point, we had populations more in balance). My continued use of gly was favoring Marestail over other much more deer friendly weeds. It was time to change my approach.
I started looking into Marestail control. I found a combination of timely mowing (just before it goes to seed, otherwise it just produces more seed heads), and 24D when it is young, can help control it to some extent. But 24D has a soil residual effect and you have to wait to plant beans which reduces my planting window for beans. I love buckwheat. It germinates so fast that it smothers many weeds, but it is not a legume and does not fix N into the soil. Deer use my buckwheat (and turkey love it), but deer don't typically abuse it unless it is a small plot with high deer densities and little other food around. Sunn hemp is a legume that fixes quite a bit of N into the soil. My deer do like it, but don't hit it so hard it can't establish. One year I tried drilling sunflowers into this mix, but deer just wiped them out at emergence but not the buckwheat or sunn hemp. This year I added a small amount of sorghum and it did pretty well. The only problem with the sorghum is that I need to start mowing for my fall plant before the seed heads have time to ripen. I did leave strips standing for vertical cover but little of the sorghum will get used by deer this year as most has been mowed. Once sunn hemp gets going, it outgrows the buckwheat and it has done well against the Marestail. This fall, I'll be using a generic liberty for burn down instead of gly. Folks who have been using it say it has no soil residual and really does a number on Marestail.
So, I now have my summer stress period covered. In most years deer ignore soybean pods in my area in favor of acorns, so for me it is no great loss. I know bean pods are much more important in the north. I'll be planting my fall cover crop of PTT/CC/WR as usual in those same fields. Both the mix I've chosen for summer and fall and the rotation between them are a balance between long-term soil health and deer use.
So, between the specific weeds you have and how gly might favor some over others, your deer densities, weather, and so on, the entire system is telling your something and the soil may or may not be the limiting factor.
From an attraction standpoint, I'm not in a situation where it matters much. Deer are more attracted to a particular field because of hunting pressure and the size and location than what particular crop I plant in it. Most of our harvest plots are maintained in perennial clover and then rotated for 18 months when they wear out before going back into clover.
Thanks,
Jack
I'm suggesting that the weeds overtaking your desired plantings are telling you something. It ain't rocket science. Listen to what your soil is telling you. When was your last soil test?
Crimson n' Camo
5 year old buck +
I agree with homerj…….One of the things we’re so often guilty of is not connecting our past management practices with what we see happening currently. You hear so many folks talking about issues with this, that, and the other but never connecting it to the things they’ve done in the past to cause it…..As if problematic weeds taking over and dominating a field is just a natural occurrence or something.
SD51555
5 year old buck +
Go perennial with some clover for a few years, and get diverse. You'll have beetles that'll gladly move in and live off your mini acorns (weed seeds). It won't be perfect, but that, a mowing once in a while, and some diversity, and your dominant weed will start to being contained. Be prepared for it to take a couple seasons to switch on.
I was just looking for some helpful suggestions. Telling me to listen to what my what my soil is saying really isn't much help. I believe that is what I have done. I raised my soil from a 5 to 6.8, all nutrients levels are optimum. Last soil test was 2 years ago.Fertilized as suggested. Is my soil telling me that I should of not put lime down? No fertilizer? Go back to deep plowing? If you have it so figured out" not rocket science" explain how to fix my problem. Tell me what my soil is saying.
SD51555
5 year old buck +
Give your soil a chance to rebalance itself. After a major disruption like spraying or plowing, everything dies (plants, weeds, bugs, fungus, bacteria) and starts over. There is a response, and that response is, the single best suited weed and bug will come roaring in and exploit the disruption. That's the point where most stop and start over again by either plowing or escalating their chem program. And that cycle will repeat itself over and over as long as the catalyst (spraying/tillage) is the same.
If it were me, I'd plow it up one more time 30 days before first frost and then plant white clover, chicory, and a cereal grain. If you've got sedge, you're probably wet. Has winter rye ever survived spring there? If it hasn't, I'd still plant rye this fall, but then come back (broadcast) with a hot rate of barley and forage oats as soon as the daytime lows stay above 20 in spring and risk of standing water is gone.
Let that go all the way to maturity and your cereals start tipping over, the later the better. Then mow it all down and do nothing else other than maybe throwing more rye or oats in. If you really want to
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