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    COMPETITION: University of Adelaide’s Dr Chris Preston says if you sow the right wheat variety early and apply the right pre-emergent herbicide package, you can halve your grass weed numbers.

AgLife: Free kick for ryegrass control

Industry-led WeedSmart program has provided insight into how wheat and canola crops offer growers practical options to improve crop competition against weeds, particularly grasses, and vastly reduce weed seed set.

It has detailed how University of Adelaide researchers, led by Dr Chris Preston and with Grains Research Development Corporation investment, took part in an extensive study to identify the agronomic factors that promoted strong early crop growth.

They found that simple strategies of growing hybrid canola and sowing wheat early could couple with pre-emergent herbicides to achieve an effective double-knock.

The result is more yield, less weed seed produced and less selection pressure on the herbicides.



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Dr Preston said a canola trial involved a range of pre-emergent herbicides and compared open pollinated and hybrid canola.

“The bottom line of our trial is that if you grow a hybrid canola with pre-emergent herbicides and do nothing else different, you’re going to reduce your grass weed seed set by 50 percent,” he said.

Having observed that later planted wheat often hosted more weeds, the Adelaide University team looked at the effect of planting wheat as early as possible.

“In this trial we found that even in weedy paddocks you can put the wheat in early with a robust pre-emergent herbicide package, and the result is more wheat yield and less ryegrass seed at the end of the season,” Dr Preston said.

“If you sow the right variety early and apply the right pre-emergent herbicide package, again you can halve your grass weed numbers, just from competition in the middle part of the season and you don’t have to change anything else.”

The entire August 26, 2020 edition of The Weekly Advertiser is available online. READ IT HERE!

The entire August 26, 2020 edition of AgLife is available online. READ IT HERE!