When it comes to herbicide-resistant wild oat, the odds favour the bad guy.
“The last herbicide-resistance survey (Beckie et al. 2020) indicates that 69 per cent of wild oat fields have herbicide resistance,” Alberta Wheat agronomy research extension specialist Jeremy Boychyn noted in an article in May. “Additionally, 62 per cent of those fields are resistant to Group 1 herbicides, 34 per cent are resistant to Group 2 herbicides, and 27 per cent are resistant to both Group 1 and Group 2 herbicides.
“These percentages have increased dramatically since the initial survey of herbicide-resistant wild oat in Western Canada occurred in 2000. At that point, the resistance to Group 1 herbicides was found in less than 20 per cent of Alberta fields.”
The spread prompted some farmers from Alberta (along with retired weed scientist Neil Harker) to urge the Canadian Weed Science Society to set up a committee to both further research and raise awareness of the threat to producers.
As part of the latter effort, the Resistant Wild Oat Action Committee has been creating infographics, including the one accompanying this story. It notes that the extent of infestation can not only reach astonishingly high levels — 3,600 seeds per square metre at one farm near Daysland — but that, incredibly, a wild oat seed can move into a crack into the soil and bury itself.
The wild oat action committee has created a number of other infographics. They can be found at the ‘Resistant Wild Oat Action Committee’ page at weedscience.ca.
These include infographics on limiting the spread of seeds when combining and using Group 15 herbicide pyroxasulfone.
