The 49-question online survey was conducted between spring and fall 2023. Ten producers from Alberta and Saskatchewan who were early adopters of the technology responded. Results were published in the September 2024 edition of the Canadian Journal of Plant Science.

Mechanical solutions like weed seed destructors have gained attention due to weed resistance concerns, but uptake is slow on the Prairies.

An impact mill is attached to the rear of a combine. As a crop is harvested, weed seeds from the back are fed into the mill, where they are spun at a high rate of speed. That damages and renders them nonviable. This material is then spread back in the field.

The mills also reduce the spread of weed seeds during harvest, resulting in lower herbicide costs and reduced selection pressure for herbicide resistance.

Among the most popular devices are the Redekop Seed Control Unit, the Integrated Harrington Seed Destructor, the Seed Terminator and the WeedHOG.

Making it work

There have been other Canadian studies on impact mills, but this was the first to look at harvest weed seed control that incorporates on-farm experiences.

AAFC research scientist Breanne Tidemann says researchers have done small-plot research and field trials on the technology, but it was important to get on-farm data.

“No matter how much small-plot research or even field trial-scale research you do, it’s not the same as a farmer using it on all their acres for multiple years,” says Tidemann, who led the research study. “They just get insights and experiences that we can’t get.”

The survey used a relatively small sample size, but the 18 weed seed mills that were part of it represented 60 per cent of the machines thought to be used in Canada in 2023. Results will provide a baseline that researchers can revisit to determine changes in adoption rate and users.

The study focused on several key issues, including who uses harvest weed seed control technology and why; challenges they have encountered; crops on which it is used; maintenance and fuel costs and its effect in controlling problem weeds.

Most of the responding producers operate farms of 10,000 acres or larger. They equipped most of their combines (75 per cent) with the mills, but were strategic because they had a limited number of machines available.

Respondents said wild oats (60 per cent) and kochia (50 per cent) were the top weeds that motivated them to use impact mills. Tidemann says she was surprised to see wild oats ranked so high.

“All the research that we’ve done has shown wild oat loses its (weed) seeds early, so there’s some challenges using harvest weed seed control for wild oat. But I’m not surprised that it’s pushing people to try alternatives.”

The survey results also showed a weed seed mill behind a combine adds an additional $1.40 in fuel costs per acre. Tidemann says it’s up to individuals to determine how affordable that is, since it largely depends on the size of the farms they operate.

On average, producers said it cost them about $1,500 a year in maintenance per impact mill, including greasing and changing parts such as bearings and belts.

Tidemann says it was difficult to pinpoint a precise figure since many respondents had only recently adopted the technology and estimated what their costs would be. Longer-use adopters indicated annual maintenance costs of about $1,750 for each unit.

Participating producers were also asked about limitations or challenges when using the mills. Most (70 per cent) identified plugging due to green material as a significant limitation, and kochia was a problem in that regard.

“A very large patch of kochia that’s essentially choked out all the crop, if you try and take that in one fell swoop, you will be unplugging the back of your combine. There’s got to be enough dry materials to push it through,” Tidemann says.

Despite that, a number of respondents said kochia had the greatest response in terms of mill use. They also noted reduced use of herbicides with grassy weeds such as wild oats and green foxtail when using an impact mill.

Wheat (90 per cent), canola (80 per cent) and lentils (80 per cent) were identified as the crops in which mills were most utilized.

Producers were asked to estimate how long it will take to recoup the investment in an impact mill and the most common response was three to five years (60 per cent) followed by six to eight years (20 per cent).

“It’s reassuring that those people that are adopting are going in with the mindset that it’s going to take some time and they’re not expecting an immediate response, which is going to lead to people stepping out of it before they would maybe see the impact,” Tidemann says.

Respondents said they most commonly consulted manufacturers and other farmers before using an impact mill.

“The mill companies makes sense,” says Tidemann. “The second one, early adopting farmers, was interesting. To me, what that’s saying is it’s all good and fine to have someone like me out talking to them, but you’re going to get a whole lot more bang for your buck if you have a farmer that’s actually using the thing. They want to hear from farmers who are using the machines.”

Resisting resistance

Jason Waldenberger participated in the study. He operates a 6,500-acre grain farm north of Moose Jaw, Sask., and has been using an Australian-manufactured Seed Terminator impact mill for the past three harvests.

Waldenberger says he’s an “easy sell” when it comes to adopting new technology and became interested in impact mills several years ago, after meeting another farmer who was using one. He was prompted to try it himself after noting chemical resistance among weeds in fields where he was growing pulse crops.

He says participating in the study was a no-brainer, since anything producers can do to help the research community also helps themselves.

“We’ve got some fantastic people working in our industry,” he says. “I think anytime we can work with those kinds of people or pass along information and vice versa, they can then do really good, steady work and help us make better decisions and give us feedback on what they’re finding.”

Tidemann says data from the survey could help manufacturers adjust their products to address concerns. It may also provide direction for future research in terms of the technology.

Asked to identify research that was still needed regarding impact mills, the three most common farmer responses were efficacy on weed densities, impact on precision spraying and grain loss calculations.

“There’s still lots of things that we don’t know (about the technology) and this gives us an idea of what’s important on-farm,” says Tidemann.

The post Real talk from real farmers on weed seed destructors appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Environmental activists cheered the court for halting use of the dicamba-based herbicides, which are known to drift away and damage crops that cannot tolerate the chemical.

Some farm groups and agribusinesses said the ruling, if enforced by the federal government, risks hurting farmers financially and reducing options for fighting weeds that are increasingly developing resistance to a limited number of herbicides.

U.S. District Court Judge David Bury in Arizona this week vacated the Environmental Protection Agency’s registrations of dicamba-based weedkillers from 2020, saying the agency violated procedures mandating public input. The ruling affects Bayer’s XtendiMax, BASF’s Enginia and Sygnenta’s Tavium, commonly used herbicides on U.S. farms.

Bayer soybeans that resist dicamba-based herbicide are the No. 2-most planted soybeans in the United States.

The companies said they disagreed with the ruling and were waiting for direction from the EPA. The EPA said it was reviewing the decision.

“Most soybean and cotton farmers have made seed and chemistry purchase decisions and, in some cases, are preparing to plant their 2024 crop in the coming weeks,” BASF said. “This order may threaten the livelihoods of soybean and cotton farmers who rely on over-the-top dicamba to control resistant weeds.”

The ruling bars farmers from spraying the dicamba products in the upcoming growing season unless the EPA allows already-shipped batches to be used, said Meredith Stevenson, staff attorney for the Center for Food Safety. The center called the decision “a vital victory for farmers and the environment.”

In June 2020, a U.S. appeals court blocked dicamba-based herbicide sales and ruled the EPA understated risks related to its use.

The EPA, under former President Donald Trump, subsequently said farmers could use their existing supplies before it eventually reauthorized use again with new restrictions in October 2020.

Under President Joe Biden, the agency in December 2021 questioned whether dicamba weedkillers could be sprayed safely on soybeans and cotton without posing “unreasonable risks” to other crops.

The post US court cancels approvals for widely used dicamba weedkillers appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

People have been shocking weeds with electricity for 100 years, but the return on the electricity invested and the technology required to do so safely haven’t always worked.

Crop.zone is a German company developing commercial field-size weed shocking implements, especially to desiccate growing crops before they are harvested and to kill cover crops or hay fields. Crop.zone uses a liquid applied just before the crop is shocked in order to increase the efficacy of the process. The company has been testing that unit in the Outlook, Sask. area this summer.

Now the company has created an implement that can fit on a standard sprayer. The sprayer provides the liquid and the boom unit will fit between the rows, giving the unit the potential to control weeds during crop growth. Crop.zone partnered with John Deere to build the new unit and together they were one of the winners of the top concept award at Agritechnica.

The biggest equipment at Agritechnica for potatoes and sugar beets. It shows how much money is invested in harvesting and processing some types of vegetables. There’s a whole building full of potato equipment at Agritechnica and its impressive the technological innovation that’s gone into managing the steps it takes to get vegetables to the market.

Automation and artificial intelligence solutions are showing up in many places in agriculture, and the products are maturing and closer to market. Naio is a French creator of autonomy solutions for horticulture and high value crops. They have a distributor in Canada and are working to create more dealers across North America. They recently announced that, as long as certain operating criteria are met, that Naio will take on the liability of the autonomous operation of their robots on a customer farm. That’s a big leap to assuage one of the major farmer and insurer concerns about automation.

They told me at Agritechnica that the Augmented Autonomy program will be available around the world.

As well, they sure take their Farming Simulator seriously in Europe.

– John Greig is a senior editor with Glacier FarmMedia. Watch for much more detail on these and many more stories and videos from Agritechnica in our Glacier FarmMedia newspapers and websites.

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Fall control on pasture might be one of the most effective tools in stopping growth of the noxious weed, said an expert with a leading agribusiness.

“If you hit them with a herbicide in the fall right after a hard frost, it will start sending all of its resources down to that big, massive root zone and it will send that herbicide down with it,” said Mark Versluys, specialties business leader with Corteva Agriscience.

“It will give you some excellent control going into the following year.”

Those roots are no joke when it comes to stealing precious moisture and nutrients from palatable pasture grasses, making it harder for them to compete.

Canada thistle roots can grow six to 18 feet deep and 20 feet laterally. One plant can yield up to 5,000 seeds that can germinate after only 10 days and spread to other points in the pasture. So it’s no surprise that Canada thistle has been named by livestock producers as the worst pasture weed on the Prairies.

Corteva recommends an integrated pasture-management system including herbicides, grazing and fertilization to tackle Canada thistle and other weeds.

The company has three herbicides for Canada thistle. They include Grazon XC (Group 4 with picloram and 2, 4-D as active ingredients), Reclaim II (Groups 2 and 4, active ingredient aminopyralid) and Restore II (Group 4, aminopyralid and 2, 4-D).

Producers can consult company or other agronomists for advice on which of these or other products are most suitable.

Timing is everything when it comes to the year’s first herbicide application on Canada thistle, said Versluys, who lives in Cochrane.

“I would say in the part of the world where I live here in southern Alberta, and even up into central Alberta, the timing would be in that second to third or fourth week of July.

“But really what you want to do is hit that plant before it buds or pre-buds. You can let it grow out a little bit to about 10 per cent growth, but you are pushing the envelope there.”

Agronomists can help figure out the best time for application. Versluys encourages producers to familiarize themselves with the target weed spectrum.

“We have different solutions, we have three fantastic products. But there’s some overlap in the weed spectrum for each of them and there’s a lot of differences as well.

“So make sure you know what you’re going after and make sure that the timing on the weeds you’re going after is correct for when you’re going in to spray it.”

The corteva.com website has labels and tech sheets for its products and most other crop protection companies feature similar content on their sites.

Graze before prickles emerge

However, herbicides are just the first step in an integrated pasture management system, said Versluys.

“Herbicide solutions are not silver bullets. They’re not going to do everything that you need to do but they are a very important part and a first step of an integrated pasture-management program.”

Although not a good solution for major thistle infestations, the next step is often to put the livestock in rotational grazing systems to work on bud-stage Canada thistle.

“It’s a huge part, not just for Canada thistle but for all weeds to keep them in line,” said Versluys.

“When you get animals into a pasture when the Canada thistle is quite small, they will eat the buds on them because they’re still somewhat tender. Of course when they get bigger, that’s a different story altogether.”

Another effective tool is crop competition on forage and pasture.

Planting competitive grasses should come after herbicide applications. Otherwise, you’re applying costly fertilizer to Canada thistle and other weeds, said Versluys.

“That’s why I say your first step should be a herbicide application to get rid of those weeds… so that when you’re spending the money on your fertilizer for the crop to extend those pastures, you’re just feeding the crop and not the weeds.”

The post The time to attack Canada thistle is now (or soon) appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Writing Monday in the ag ministry’s Field Crop News, Ontario provincial weed management specialist Mike Cowbrough said the plant in question, found in Wellington County, is confirmed as palmer amaranth.

The species has previously been dubbed the most troublesome weed in U.S. agriculture, but hasn’t yet appeared in Canada in a significant way; its only other recent known appearance in Canada outside Ontario was by a couple of plants in a southern Manitoba bean field in 2021.

While the broadleaf weed is known for its physical height — up to eight feet — and aggressive rate of spread, it’s also infamous in the U.S. and elsewhere for its adaptability against herbicides, making it even more difficult to keep in check.

The International Herbicide-Resistant Weed Database has logged cases in multiple countries of palmer amaranth plants showing resistance to one, two or three herbicide modes of action, along with two cases in the U.S. — Kansas in 2015 and Arkansas in 2016 — where the plants were resistant to five modes.

The database also documents one case, in a Kansas sorghum field in 2021, in which a palmer amaranth plant showed resistance to six different herbicide modes of action (groups 2, 5, 6, 9, 14 and 27).

In all, populations of palmer amaranth have been found with resistance to one or more of nine different modes.

Cowbrough, in his post Monday, said “it was only a matter of time” before the weed turned up in Ontario, as it was already in the Ontario-adjacent states of New York and Michigan — and has been seen in all other states bordering the Great Lakes.

Provincial specialists had also previously confirmed one-off appearances in separate spots in Ontario in 1966, 1978 and, most recently, in 2007 near Niagara Falls.

“The most valuable thing that can be done at this point is to know the process to identify any plants you suspect may be palmer amaranth and destroy any plants before they produce seed,” Cowbrough wrote.

But proper identification may be a tall order; Ontario weed specialists have previously noted it’s extremely difficult to discern palmer amaranth — or its relative, waterhemp, for that matter — from other pigweed species, especially when spotted as seedlings.

For example: the Wellington County landowner who called in the newest case described it as “‘a weird looking pigweed’ that just looked different than anything they had seen before,” Cowbrough said.

However, he said, that goes to show farmers’ gut instinct is “usually a pretty good screening tool for when you should seek help” confirming either palmer amaranth or waterhemp.

Early detection, particularly when the number of plants involved is small and manageable, is important, he said. Any palmer amaranth plants could be pulled or dug out, roots included, to prevent any seed from being produced and/or dispersed.

To help prevent the weed from gaining a toehold, Cowbrough said fall-seeded crops such as winter cereals and winter canola can “create an environment that is not ideal for (weed) seed germination.” Cover crops planted after a crop harvest are also known to generally help reduce pigweed populations that germinate and can produce viable seed.

Perennial forages such as alfalfa, he said, offer “the best opportunity” to prevent seedlings from germinating — and to draw down the weed population’s seed bank through “predation and other environmental stressors.”

For fields that are going into corn and/or soybean, finding an effective pre-emergence herbicide is “extremely important,” he said, as it would take out a “significant amount” of a first flush of palmer amaranth seedlings and make sure there’s not a “huge range” in weed stage for any post-emergent spraying that follows. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Despite a cool and wet day in late June, a full house of farmers made their way through the damp fields.

While a lot can be learned in a classroom or conference hall, field days allow farmers to see research under way and are an important aspect of Farming Smarter’s mission, says Sean Kjos, communications coordinator for the applied research organization.

“It [the field school] allows us to directly share the research we are doing at Farming Smarter and showcase researchers who are undertaking research that’s relevant to finding solutions for growers in our area,” said Kjos.

Cover crops are among the studies. Research scientist Gurbir Dhillon demonstrated roller crimping, a process primarily used on cover crops as a form of weed control that bends rather than cuts stalks. Done at the right time, it creates a layer of biomass that can improve soil health and help control weeds.

“If you can at least reduce herbicide applications, then it’s still helpful,” said Dhillon.

Complex questions

Maryse Bourgault is an assistant professor and Western Grains Research Foundation chair in integrated agronomy at the University of Saskatchewan. She said there are few scientific studies on cover crops in Western Canada because the Prairies have a varied set of obstacles for growing season and soil nutrients.

However, studies in processes like roller crimping can prompt further research and support for cover crops and encourage producers to experiment in their own fields.

Bourgault said many features are said to improve soil health but it isn’t as straightforward as it may seem because a unique combination of nutrients are needed from the soil for each type of crop. Her cover crops research explores options available to growers that fit their needs while improving soil health.

Kjos says conversations between producers and researchers are an important aspect of field days.

“They allow us to hear from producers in our area directly,” Kjos said. “The problem areas they’re experiencing on their farms directs our research proposals for the following years so we can continue to do relevant research.”

New crops

Other Farming Smarter research includes novel crops. The research team successfully grew rice this year as an experiment.

Research coordinator Mike Gretzinger showed a plot of upland rice grown in fields rather than flooded paddies, noting that flooding is a form of weed control in countries without access to other options.

Producers are obviously loath to experiment with crops unlikely to turn a profit, Gretzinger argues that growing a novel crop is a great learning tool.

“I like the challenge. You learn so much when you are first trying to grow a novel crop,” he said.

Kjos echoed that goal, which is important to Farming Smarter.

“Not only are farmers exposed to new research they could have been unaware of, but the events also provide the chance to gain new perspectives on practices they may be considering adopting or how they can improve those they’re currently undertaking,” said Kjos.

“Additionally, the nature of the events allows for attendees to meet new people and grow their networks.”

The post Soil health main topic of Farming Smarter field school appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

At the Ag in Motion outdoor farm show this week, field residue management manufacturer Redekop won the Innovations Award for Environmental Sustainability for its harvest Seed Control Unit, which destroys more than 95 per cent of unwanted seeds the combine leaves behind.

With different weeds and weed varieties becoming increasingly resistant to glyphosate herbicides, integrated weed management will be vital for western Canadian farmers in the near future.

Redekop field support and salesperson Neale Heinrich was at the Discovery Farm for this year’s Ag in Motion event, coming from Australia. The battle with herbicide-resistant weeds Down Under has spanned decades, particularly against Italian ryegrass.

“We’re close to 40 years of resistance, building and building,” said Heinrich.

“It’s been a battle. All sorts of different processors, chaff carts, burning, all sorts of stuff.”

There are many different ways to control weed seeds at harvest, such as chaff-collecting, chaff-trampling, chaff-lining, baling behind the combine and burning the straw.

Some methods remove the chaff, and in turn remove most of the seeds with it. Chaff-trampling and chaff-lining concentrate the chaff into lines, which create rot and make it difficult for the weeds to grow while reducing their spread.

The Redekop Seed Control Unit destroys the seeds that leave the combine through the chaff and spreads a refined dust across the field, removing the seed problem without removing the straw.

Managing the chaff is key to eliminating herbicide-resistant weeds because they are typically spread through the combine’s straw chopper, broadcasting the seeds across the field.

Breanne Tidemann, a research scientist at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, wants to find ways to limit how many weed seeds remain in the field after harvest, and in turn limit weed growth and reproduction.

“When we’re applying herbicides, we’re trying to stop those seedling stages,” she said.

“we’re focusing on that part of the life-cycle — let’s kill those seedlings. But those seedlings we don’t manage to kill, those that return, the ones that produce the seeds that we’re broadcasting, those that are a problem in the current system, they’re probably the most herbicide-resistant.

“They’re the ones that have avoided every other thing that we’ve thrown at them so far, and they’re going to come back and grow again next year. We’re making our lives harder by putting those back into our soil.”

Tidemann specializes in integrated weed management, weed biology, harvest weed-seed control and managing herbicide-resistant weeds. She spoke at Ag in Motion Tuesday on herbicide-resistant weeds in Western Canada and how to manage them.

Wild oats, kochia, cleavers and green and yellow foxtail are some of the many weeds becoming resistant to herbicides across the Prairies.

Tidemann’s research shows that 74 per cent of any weed that is put through the harvester will be herbicide-resistant, and so will their seeds.

“Three out of four fields that have weeds in them around harvest time probably have resistant weeds,” said Tidemann.

The number is also increasingly rapidly. Her studies show that kochia in Alberta was first observed as being glyphosate-resistant in 2011, and in 2012 five per cent of populations were resistant.

In the most recent 2021 survey, 78 per cent of kochia in Alberta is resistant. The resistance is growing in population and in strength, making more herbicides useless against them.

For Heinrich, this sounded all too familiar.

“Listening to Breanne (Tidemann), you want to get on it,” he said.

“If you can learn anything from Australia’s perspective, we’re fighting, we’re fighting back and working our hardest to try to get ahead of it, but it’s been ahead of us.”

Taking the seeds out of the field helps Australian farmers regain control of their farmland, although Heinrich said it took them a long time for the seed banks to empty.

Newcomers to integrated seed management can’t expect weeds to leave the field instantly, although they can expect to see their weeds stay more concentrated rather than spread across the field.

“It’s a long-term (plan),” said Heinrich. “We do have clients that have said they’ve taken on a piece of property and it was filthy with weeds when they took it, then the following year they came back to harvest and they’ve seen a marked difference.”

While integrated weed management has been widely adopted in Australia, it has not gained a lot of traction in Western Canada. Tidemann said only 20 to 30 Redekop Seed Control Units are being used across the Prairies.

The post At Ag in Motion: Herbicide resistance fight needs integrated seed management appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Harvest weed seed control might not be a golden bullet to tackle glyphosate-, fluroxypyr- and dicamba-resistant weeds, but according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada researcher Breanne Tidemann, it’s part of the range of solutions needed to stem the tide.

“You’re not going to spray your way out of this,” Tidemann said about herbicide resistance during her presentation at Ag in Motion.

“If you get a new product or new mode of action that works really well, everyone is going to adopt it, the selection pressure is going to go through the roof and we’re going to break that next tool, too. So, continuing to hope, cross our fingers, wishing and praying a new product is going to come out and save us is a little bit naïve, a little wishful thinking.”

However, the ability to mechanically separate weed seed at the point of harvest is part of the diversification solution that looks beyond just chemicals.

Development of harvest weed seed control started in the early 2000s in Australia before moving onto commercialization with the Harrington Seed Destructor trailer unit.

There are limitations to the implement, mainly that the weeds need to be either tall or short enough to fit in the header. However, once they do, the weed seeds are largely ground up into a flour-like material, doesn’t broadcast and can be an effective tool in not only limiting spread but getting to the core of the issue. As long as weeds are harvested, seed destructors have a more than 95 per cent rate of success.

Canadian research with the unit began in 2014, but since then, integrated harvest weed seed control implements for combines have been developed and are now commercially available.

While initial research is promising in demonstrating the implement will have significant impact on both weed control as well as limiting broadcast, weeds will likely be able to adapt even to mechanical attempts at tackling weeds.

“Weeds will adapt. Weeds are dirty little buggers that will find some way — they’ll mature more quickly, they’ll drop there seeds earlier, they’ll become more prostrate,” said Tidemann.

“We’ll see adaptations, I firmly believe that, particularly if we switch whole hog from only herbicides to only relying on this.”

She said it’s about redundancy, adding the solution is to use a range of techniques.

As far as where the technology goes next, Tidemann said the speed in which it’s already progressed is impressive and manufacturers of weed seed harvest control implements are continually improving the product.

“They are really listening to farmers,” she said.

“A farmer will say, ‘I had a problem with a metal bolt going through and it damaged my mill, I had to do a lot of repairs.’ The next thing you know, they’ve got a magnetic strip to catch metal pieces before they go through the mills.”

As development work continues, Tidemann said she hopes the technology is more widely adopted in Canada.

“My understanding from talking to colleagues (in Australia) is 80 to 90 per cent of their farmers are using some form of harvest weed control,” she said.

“Western Australia is showing it can be incorporated into a system and it can help and it can work.”

There is a cost, with units running in the $100,000 range, but Tidemann said it’s likely less than what farmers might think because it can be used on one combine that can tackle particularly weed patches rather than being required on every combine.

— Alex McCuaig reports for the Western Producer from Medicine Hat.

The post At Ag in Motion: Harvest weed control still in the mix appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

That’s the view of a seed grower from New Zealand who made farming without glyphosate the focus of his Nuffield research.

It’s hard to overstate the impact of this one herbicide on agriculture — nor what would happen if it one day became unavailable, Hamish Marr said at Farming Smarter’s recent Global Crop Production virtual conference

“What Roundup did to agriculture was a complete shift in the way farmers approach weed control and cultivation around the world,” said Marr.

“But in developed countries such as yours and mine, glyphosate is under increasing pressure toward de-registration, and as a farmer who depends on it, like many, I wanted to understand what the issues are, what can be done about it, and if we could operate without it.”

Prior to the pandemic, the fifth-generation farmer from New Zealand’s south island spent six months travelling to 13 different countries and speaking to “people who told me they couldn’t farm without it, and people who told me they could.”

And while he’s largely in the first camp, the latter demonstrates there is a viable alternative to the status quo, he said.

“In terms of living without Roundup, I don’t think it’s possible or sustainable given the population today, but what I do think is that we really have to consider how we use Roundup going forward,” said Marr. “There are examples of people who are very successfully farming without Roundup. We can learn lessons from those farmers.”

But first, we need to learn from past mistakes, he said.

Before 1973 when Roundup first hit the market, farmers only had two options for weed control — cultivation (six or seven times prior to seeding, in some cases) or expensive selective herbicides that left residues. The former wasn’t just causing soil loss but also eroding the bottom line.

“So much time was spent and so much fuel was burned on weed control,” said Marr.

Roundup was a true game changer — broad spectrum, low toxicity for mammals, and you could spray one day and seed the next “without any fear of damage to the following crop.” That’s why it’s often called the “chemical of the century,” he said.

“These three factors in combination have enabled some huge advances in agriculture,” he said. “It has enabled minimum tillage and zero tillage to become a globally accepted best practice. It’s drastically reduced soil erosion because farmers now cultivate simply to create a seedbed, not to control weeds. In warm climates, continuous cropping became possible, and in more recent times, cover cropping has become common.

“All of this was possible because glyphosate completely changed weed control as we know it.”

A wake-up call

But Roundup became the victim of its own success.

“The success of Roundup as a chemical has led to so much of it being applied and so often that we now have a huge global movement working against its use,” he said.

Austria became the first EU country to ban the chemical and Germany plans to phase out its use in 2024. A ban is being considered in his home country, Marr said.

“Even though here in New Zealand we only apply glyphosate to six per cent of our farmland annually, it is still public enemy No. 1. The public and the politicians see a completely different story than those of us in agriculture.”

And even though he farms, he only had second-hand knowledge about the herbicide as New Zealand doesn’t have GM crops (and hence no glyphosate-tolerant ones).

“Prior to visiting Canada and the U.S., my understanding was limited to what I read or what we heard from groups like Greenpeace,” he said.

“The consumer is being told that glyphosate and GMOs are killing the environment. But what they aren’t told — and certainly don’t understand — is what GM cropping has done for food safety, nor what Roundup has done for food production globally.”

His Nuffield travels were a wake-up call and Marr concluded that the story of Roundup holds a lesson that producers should never forget.

“This should have been a win win for farmers and consumers,” he said. “They sold the good news story about GM to farmers but forgot about the consumers, and by then, it was too late.”

A second lesson is that Mother Nature doesn’t like overuse of pesticides, either.

Glyphosate-resistant weeds are on farms all over the world, including here in Alberta, and “that is going to be difficult for a lot of farmers to get out of,” said Marr.

And the odds of another chemical replacing glyphosate (or other herbicides) are very low.

“Many companies have exhausted the supply of new technology and new chemistry. There simply will not be in the future new herbicides to any great degree, and that is a real thing farmers need to understand.”

A new mindset

Farming is already getting “incredibly complicated” for those forced to turn to cultivation to manage resistant weeds.

“Farmers who have resistance have already lost the battle and face something like this in the future. For the rest of us, we have to consider how to responsibly use the tools we have so we don’t get to that point.”

One way to do that is called ‘integrated weed management’ — a relatively new term for an old concept loosely defined as managing a field based on the weeds that are present in it.

“When I looked at integrated weed management at the start, I was quite daunted. But there’s nothing to be frightened of in this,” said Marr. “In actual fact, a lot of farmers and agronomists are doing this already. They might not be doing it all, but they’re doing a fair bit of it without realizing it has a name.”

It includes having diverse cropping systems, choosing the right cultivars for the land, targeted weed control, and rigorously monitoring and evaluating successes and failures.

As a place to start, extending your crop rotation can increase the time between glyphosate applications and reduce the risk of developing resistance. Marr saw that first hand on his travels during his visits to regenerative and organic operations.

“The organic and regenerative agriculture farmers immediately increased their crop mix because they realize they need to manage these weeds in a different way,” he said. “The more we increase our crop mix, the more opportunities we have in winning the war on resistance because we’ll be using different methods for weed control for different crops. They may all be chemicals, but they’ll be different chemistry.”

Including livestock within the cropping system can also help, he added. During his Nuffield travels, Marr visited a large farm in the United Kingdom that had “massive problems” with resistant black grass.

“They felt like they were losing the war with five applications of Roundup each year,” he said. “Out of desperation — and quite by accident — they tried grazing sections of their farm between crops and in the winter with sheep, and quite unbelievably, found that they lessened the amount of Roundup they were using by upwards of 90 per cent.

“This particular operation has completely changed their crop mix and the intensity of their operation as a result. As a result of that, the black grass problem as really gone away. This is just one example of integrated weed management.”

By taking a farm system approach to weed control, producers can reduce their reliance on glyphosate while ensuring the chemistry remains available and effective into the future.

“Roundup has become, to many, an insurance policy that has kept our farms clean without us having to think about it,” said Marr.

“It’s very easy to reach for a can. The reality is that sometime in the future, the can may not be there because it doesn’t work anymore.

“We must use all of the tools available to us to ensure we keep the efficacy of the ones we depend on year in year out.”

However, every operation will be different, so farmers will need to look at their own system and determine where it can be changed or adapted to manage weeds.

“Everywhere is different and we all have different constraints,” he said. “But if we evaluate the natural capital on all of our farms, there are little advantages that each and every one of us have that we can use.”

Farmers tend to be “very shy” about tackling these issues but if you don’t take a proactive approach to integrated weed management, “by then, it’s often too late.”

“If we don’t learn the lessons on resistance, for example, we’ll almost certainly lose these tools in time. That is a real threat, and if we do, we will be forced into major adaptive change,” said Marr.

“Some people think this is moving away from what we call traditional agriculture, but agriculture is always changing. There is always innovation — and generally, innovation is good.”

The post A world without Roundup is a ‘real threat’ appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Alberta’s first go-round with a Certified Weed Free Forage program a decade ago never fully took off but the Alberta Invasive Species Council has revived the initiative.

“Use of certified weed-free forage is a best management practice, benefiting both private and public land managers,” a council fact sheet on the program states. “Preventing the introduction and spread of invasive species is one of the most effective ways to manage them.”

The organization has provided specific training to 45 weed inspectors across the province and those employed by 11 participating counties are available to conduct inspections. An inspector does a walk-through of fields (prior to cutting) and any forage storage areas to ensure invasive species are not present.

“Invasive species may be present in a field certified as weed free if there are no propagative plant parts (e.g. flowers, seed heads, root fragments) present,” the council said in a release.

There are 75 regulated and prohibited noxious weeds in Alberta but there are many others listed by the North American Invasive Species Management Association, which sets the standards and protocols for Alberta’s certification program.

Counties can charge a fee but “it’s my understanding that none are doing so,” said Megan Evans, executive director of the invasive species council.

The inspection must be done within 10 days of cutting and producers have to purchase special twine (available from participating counties) for marking the bales as certified. The baled product must be stored and transported separately from non-certified forage.

Any producers who have certified weed-free forage they want to sell can contact the council and it will post their contact info on its website. The council says there is increasing demand for the product for use in parks and protected areas.

The 11 counties participating so far in the program and offering inspections are: Barrhead, Clearwater, Kneehill, Lacombe, Mountain View, Northern Sunrise, Parkland, Red Deer, Rocky View, Smoky Lake and the Municipal District of Bonnyville.

“If you produce forage in a municipality that is not participating in the program, but you are interested in having an inspection conducted, please contact the AISC and we will work to find a solution,” the council release said.

It can be reached at 587-999-0954 or info@abinvasives.ca. Its website is abinvasives.ca.

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