Herbicide-resistant weed now in 7 Ontario counties

Farmers in 7 Ontario counties will have a worse time fighting a weed called waterhemp, given some have grown a insurgency to glyphosate — a form of chemical used for weed control.

Herbicide-resistant waterhemp is found in counties including Essex, Lambton and Chatham-Kent. 

This boundary herbicide options for farmers, that is going to be a problem for Ontario, according to Peter Sikkema, a margin weed government highbrow during a University of Guelph’s Ridgetown campus.

He pronounced for a past 20 years, growers have relied on regulating Roundup to control weeds in corn and soybean fields, though now they will “have to use choice herbicides to get effective control.”

Dale Cowan, senior agronomist and sales manager with Agris Cooperative, pronounced a problem is partly due to over-using a herbicide in a initial place.

“Glyphosate was cheap, it was usually $7 an acre,” pronounced Cowan. “We put a preference vigour on healthy race and now it no longer works well, so we have to supplement other chemistries to kill a weeds.”

According to Cowan, to control a weed, it’ll take 3 or some-more chemicals into a herbicide mix, along with regulating a two-pass (multiple sprays of a field) system.

Identifying early is key

It has also been a prolonged time given farmers had to hand-maintain their fields, pronounced Sikkema.

“Farm sizes have increasing dramatically and one of a reasons since that was probable given of effective weed management,” he said.

According to Cowan, early marker of a weed is important. Farmers should brand them early and mist them when they are still small.

“It looks like each other pig weed out there, that’s a problem,” pronounced Cowan. 

The resistant waterhemp has been found in Huron, Wentworth, Middlesex and Haldimand counties, in further to Essex, Lambton and Chatham-Kent. 

Article source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/herbicide-resistant-weed-ontario-essex-chatham-1.5152887?cmp=rss