Weeds AR Wild Series, S3 Ep7. On this episode, Dr. Larry Steckel from the University of Tennessee joins Dr. Tom Barber to discuss late season burndowns and cotton weed control programs.
Weeds AR Wild Series, S3 Ep7. On this episode, Dr. Larry Steckel from the University of Tennessee joins Dr. Tom Barber to discuss late season burndowns and cotton weed control programs.
[00:01] Intro/Outro
Arkansas Row Crops Radio: Providing up to date information and timely recommendations on row crop production in Arkansas.
[00:11] Tom Barber
Welcome to the Weeds AR Wild podcast series as a part of Arkansas Grow Crops Radio. This is Tom Barber, extension wheat scientist with the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. Today, I'm joined by Dr. Larry Steckel with, he's an extension wheat scientist with the University of Tennessee. Larry and talk a great deal across the season. Whenever I have questions I can’t answer, I'm always quick to send Larry a text or call Larry. So later we’ll share his phone number with everybody so y'all can do the same. So, anyway, Larry, welcome to the podcast. Aren't you glad to be here today?
[00:43] Larry Steckel
Oh, yeah. That I am Tom.
[00:45] Tom Barber
Yeah, you didn't know what you were getting into did you?
[00:47] Larry Steckel
I had no clue. . .
[00:49] Tom Barber
We’re going to share all your information.
[00:49] Larry Steckel
Oh, Lord, no.
[00:55] Tom Barber
I appreciate you. I know it's a busy time of year. We're all trying to get plots planted with the weather and the rain. We've kind of all been delayed to some extent, and so we won't spend too much time here. But we appreciate your time and, and thank you for being here. So while we store what you give us a little progress about what's going on in Tennessee across the river there and just some of the things you're seeing right now.
[01:20] Larry Steckel
Ok Tom, I'm glad to be here. And well, kind of like you, we’re a good deal ahead on planning than we were at this time last year or last couple of years it seems. Corn, a good bit of the corn’s in now. We’ll still have some. The river is surprisingly low. It's usually backed in on a lot of our fields, but it's surprisingly low. I guess there's a good deal of snow up north. It's got a melt, though I guess. So the jury's still out on the river, but it's low for this time of year. So we're getting good progress on that. And then a good bit of soybeans planted. This, uh, I kind of thought it was a fad at first as planting soybeans early, but it's not. It's kind of, it's kind of par for the course now. A good bit of soybeans are planted. We got some up. The corn, a lot of it's pretty good stand. Fortunately, it didn't get quite so cold, but it got close. So all the corn's pretty good shape and we'll have a good bit more planted this week. Well, there's virtually no cotton planted here, here in Tennessee, but they may start a little bit this week if we get into a warm up. But I think probably most of it will go next two weeks after that here.
[02:30] Tom Barber
Well, I think we have some anxious cotton planters out there today. I think a lot of them are in Arkansas anyway, a lot of them are sitting on go. And our, we've planted the world up because of the dry conditions where folks could plant. We've got a lot of core, a lot of beans, a lot of rice that came up during the cold, wet period. And it, it looks like it came up during that period. I mean, none of it looks that good. It's all kind of shaggy looking. So I'm hoping this week of sunshine and maybe we can squeeze some warmer temps out there. We'll kind of turn this crop around because it, it was looking pretty rough as of Friday anyway.
[03:10] Larry Steckel
Yeah. We're supposed to go into just a little bit of a warm up, maybe look at about 80 towards the end of the week. That'd be helpful.
[03:17] Tom Barber
Yeah. I think a lot of our cotton growers have that calendar out. Looking at it, knowing it’s the 1st of May and they're getting a little ansy. I figure that with the equipment we have, we'll probably plant the Arkansas cotton crop between now and Friday, my guesstimate. (both laughing)
[03:31] Larry Steckel
But yeah, it's definitely a big ole air seeders that you get a lot in the ground in a hurry.
[03:35] Tom Barber
Oh it doesn't take them long. It does not take long, so I'm sure we're going to get a lot of progress this week. Well, what about weed control? What are you hearing and what are the calls that you've been getting? I know we're still, we've got some late burn downs going out. I still get calls about that. We've got some, you know, issues in corn maybe where we haven't put our residuals out or got caught by the rain or before we could get back there and get something sprayed. What, what are you seeing out there?
[04:03] Larry Steckel
Well, overall, at least compared to last couple of years, our early burn down season was pretty successful. We didn't have near as many, well, just grown up messes this year. In saying that we still got problems, most notably of dry grass. And I know it's it's bad on your side of the river, too. And, you know, but just today the phone calls being on I got ryegrass that burned down. I got corn up. Now what I do. And I don't know, that's force it well and I don't really have a good save to get you out of that mess. I have had some folks you know dig up some steadfast put on it. I don't know occasion that works, but it's hard to predict. There's a lot of it is resistant to ALS’s so, but on occasion it's not and particularly if you get over the middle Tennessee, it seems like it's more successful than it is in West Tennessee. But, you know, on a good hot day, which we haven't had any of those, you can get liberty kind of maybe dry it down a little bit. That's, that's about all I know.
[05:00] Tom Barber
Yeah. And we're the same way. And I tell folks the same thing over here is, you know, the steadfast is the one bullet I have. If it's even a bullet and, you know, we may mess with it. So but that's really the only thing I know. And I don't know how much of the corn that we plant is even tolerant to Glufosonate or Liberty. And so that I agree with you, that's an option where we can put it out. But the weather hadn’t been great for Liberty either. So I get I still get a lot of horse weed calls over here. You know, whether we missed them in burned down or didn’t put the right stuff out for burn down to get them. And you know, when we get end of season, it becomes a lot more difficult to take them out of the crop. Especially you know if it's not a dicamba tolerant crop I guess. I think with some of the Extend technologies that we’re planting now, folks tend to maybe delay some of that and try to get those out. But horseweed’s a weed, that can be pretty competitive early. I mean, I think we can see some allelopathic effects stunting. I know I can see stunting from, from the plants being next to, you know, either a corn or a cotton or a soybean plant. So it's important to get those out before that crop comes out of the ground. And, you know, from what I've seen anyway.
[06:18] Larry Steckel
Yeah, I'd agree. Back when it was, just had us covered up, it was a major issue and you would see crops just won't grow well around it, especially broadleaf crops. So yeah you do want to get, get that not knocked out before it crops up. And, and we have seen more, we had a resurgence last year. You know before that I had a hard time finding it except you know, you know construction sites or something. But last year it came out of nowhere. It was late emergence, a lot of this, you know especially March, April emergence and was a real issue. And it's kind of doing the same thing this year. Not quite as extensive, but it's, it's, it's kind of doing the same thing where we're seeing it.
[07:02] Tom Barber
With these temperatures dipping down into the, you know, the lower, you know, fifties, upper forties at night. And the highs not getting much out of the 70’s, I expect we're going to see another germination of it. I mean we've had to deal with that in the past. You know I remember when glyfosate resistant horseweed first became a thing or marestail first became a thing. And, you know, we kind of got on the program of doing residuals with our early burn downs to keep it clean until we could get in with planting. But it, it's funny how we forget those things. We talk about it. You know, it is more money to include those residuals at burn down it seems like. And so, uh, there may be some apprehension to put them out there. But that's really how we dealt with the issue many years ago was including those residuals with the burn down to keep them out of our, out of the crop. So,
[07:55] Larry Steckel
Yeah, and that's for sure. You know, one of the big things we've moved to over here is either verdict or sharpen. But that was in short supply and a lot of folks couldn't get it. So folks started looking at elefors. The elefor went out. That did fairly well. I think people getting their first exposure to it. It does work on Mare's tail, but it's slow. It is slow, right. So compared to Dicamba or, or certainly a verdict or sharpen.
[08:22] Tom Barber
There's no real residual with it. Right. So I mean, it's good at controlling it post. But, you know, for any protection from future flushes, there's no real good residual there.
[08:31] Larry Steckel
Yeah, No, there's not. That's what’s a big advantage to sharpen. It's going, it's going to lay there for a couple of weeks for you to keep any more Marestail to coming up.
[08:43] Tom Barber
Right. Well, we're, like I said, we're moving into, we don't have a lot of cotton planted, but we're moving into that window where we feel like we're going to start seeing some planters roll in this week. So what do you think and what's on the top of your mind when farmers call you in Tennessee wanting a good residual program for the pig weed or grass or what are the main issues y'all are dealing? We know pig weed. We're all dealing with pig weed. But what are some other issues that you're concerned about this year?
[09:10] Larry Steckel
Yeah, well, particularly the grasses. So, you know, coteran caporal has been real standard pre, but that's always been a little weak on the grasses. Nobody seem to worry too much about it until all of a sudden they can’t control grasses and crop very well anymore. So trying to dial in some of these and you know, maybe instead of coteran caporal, you know, a lot more folks are looking like a coteran prowl, maybe a coteran and warrant or it would be two of the ones that I probably come to mind the most. Summaries are break. It has good grass activity, but it's a sticker shock on that one that keeps it from being used. You know, over just every acre, weed control wise, it's, it's pretty hard to beat. But that sticker shock is, is a real thing. So what coteran prowl, coteran warrant is, is what folks are kind of trying to dial in because, especially last year goose grass was terrible over here. Barnyard grass was, was bad in spots but goose grass, we had some cotton fields that look like, look like pastures and they just never could get a get a handle on it. Roundup, dicamba, it just you might as well just leave the roundup out because that dicamba just hinders it from working at all on goose grass. And we got enough either low level resistant or really high level resistant in some cases roundup in our goose grass population. But a lot of it I think is fairly low level but you put dicamba with it, it's bulletproof then but just, it just doesn't work with that tank mix, so and if it lasts a while I don't think that that dicamba affects, you know it, it lasts for several weeks afterwards especially at some of the rates that dicamba we’re using now. Well you know, even if you come back with like a select ten days later, two weeks, it may not work well either because the antagonism still kind of lasted, from the dicamba.
[11:07] Tom Barber
Well, and that's, that's a good point and I get that question all the time. Well, if we can't tank mix them, when do we come back or which one do we spray first? And you know, that's a hard call to make when you're not standing in the field and know how big or how bad the pig weeds are versus how big and bad the grass is. And so when you start having to make a tough call like that, heck, it might be easier just to put glufosonate out on the first shot if we can, with Roundup. I don't know.
[11:34] Larry Steckel
Yeah, no, exactly. I think so too. And at least get the pigweed and maybe get some of the some of the grasses. It's just depending on how successful you are getting Liberty sprayed. Middle of the day, hot, humid. You got to have those.
[11:50] Tom Barber
Right. And you know Liberty's never been a good grasser. Glufosonate’s never been a great grasser, but when it when the conditions are tough, you know like last year when it's 100 degrees, Roundup really doesn't help us on grass much either. At least my experience and so I just about rather burn it and try to get ahead of it, then maybe come back later with something when the conditions get better.
[12:11] Larry Steckel
Yeah, that's been my experience too. I think that's right on. Well, yeah, we're at that miserable stretch there in June, you know, no rain and really hot and a lot of Roundup went out there and didn't, didn't do a thing.
[12:22] Tom Barber
Right. And I don't know how widespread our goose grass resistance is to Roundup either. I mean we but we were talking about this before we started the podcast. But you know what, 10, 12 years ago we identified it, and you know I don't get a lot of calls until last year. I didn't get a ton of calls on it, I got a ton of calls last year. And I think a lot of it goes back to the temperatures and the conditions and but back to the dicamba and mixing. If we're going to use Roundup or Select or another graminoside, would you rather have that go out first before the dicamba, is that what you’ll have seen over there?
[13:00] Larry Steckel
Yeah. Typically, typically you know that try and get the grass. It somewhat depends on the field because my experience has been the fields that are really bad goose grass fields the last couple of years. There's not a lot of pigweed in those fields. In part because the goose grass smothers it out. So I try and dial it in for which species is, is the most prevalent. And if it's grass, then yeah, I go I try and tackle the grass first and I'm to the point now I think we've got to have clefodim in with Roundup all the time. If goosegrass or barnyard grass are the target.
[13:36] Tom Barber
I agree. And I think a lot of our growers are doing that kinda already just, just trying to mix those both to get a little better results and you know when from a residual standpoint, do you have a favorite residual for like a goose grass? I mean, is Outlook better than duel? What have you seen over there?
[13:53] Larry Steckel
Well, uh, uh, so Dual’s pretty good, Outlook I think they are both kind of on par. It kind of depends a little bit on, on, you know, the crop, but peroxicelfone’s really hard to beat on all the grasses and so. And that's something that is really taken off over here is putting it in cotton with fertilizer applications and I’ve had a bunch of discussions with, with folks doing that last year had good luck with it. They're, it's going to really expand this year. It's going to become more of a standard practice and something a few folks will try. Everything we've seen so far with it, it looks really good.
[14:34] Tom Barber
Yeah, I think we have to get pyroxasulfone in the system one way or the other, whether they want to post directed or do the fertilizer. I know it's a lot easier at least applying it to get it out with fertilizer because when I tell somebody to put on a drop nozzle or run a post direct rig, you'd think I'd shot him in the foot or something. I mean, they, you know, it’s a four-letter word.
[14:53] Larry Steckel
They, yeah.
[14:54] Tom Barber
The four-letter word, you know, drop nozzle is a four-letter word, kind of like flushing in rice. Uh, but you know, that fertilizer is pretty and true. We're doing a lot more work with that. uh, how early do you think we can go with that, Larry? I mean what, when do you think we need to target that application? And I know it depends . . .
[15:16] Larry Steckel
Well, yeah, I think yeah, of course, it depends. And this is something which is what this new technology with the thrive on. I really worry that's going to hurt our weed control, that technology, because really that, that one two leaf, I always call it the thrips window. If they're not spraying thrips, then they're not going to have, there's much incentive to be as timely with the with that Dual or Warrant or what have you there. So in that case, I don't know why you couldn't put it on then. You know that two, you know, one two three leaf, in that window and try to catch it as, as your pre’s wearing down especially in a thrive on if they're not going to be going across and spraying thrips material with, you know Dual in the tank with it. I'm, I'm really worried that we're going to see more weed control issues in cotton because the thrive on being so successful on thrips.
[16:10] Tom Barber
Well and I hadn’t thought about that but you're right. I mean I, I can see pushing that earlier in that scenario and I definitely like to get it out before we get a lot of flushes. But at the same time, on these 38-inch beds or wider, I tend to want to move it a little later so I get protection until I get some canopy in, so I'm torn on that. I think it's, you know, situationally dependent based on the field history and that kind of thing. But I, I definitely agree with you that it needs to become more of a, a standard practice to get pyroxasulfone in our cotton system one way or another.
[16:44] Larry Steckel
You know, that whole, whole thing, we're learning as we go, especially on impregnating it and the folks getting around to doing that. But, you know, it was first done in Texas, and they have no humidity, so they don't have any trouble. But we had a few this year, these hot, real humid days. Here's water running out of the fertilizer, you know, concrete pad and just from the air. And there were a few clumping issues. And I think people are trying some different things. I know some are throwing like Dawn dishwashing soap in trying to help it clump less, but they tell me, I don't know I haven’t done any work on this. That they seem to help it get off the mixer sides a little easier with that in there. Well I think they were trying to run an additive too to put in there that on a real hot humid day that maybe won't have clumping issues with it.
[17:31] Tom Barber
Right. Well and we definitely don't want to get an airplane all clumped up and trying to land again. Land with that mess you know. And so, you know, and I think we still do a lot of this by ground in cotton because we get down the rows, especially early. We're not, you know, damaging the cotton before it gets too big. But I think it's got a great potential. And, you know, the years we’ve, the last two years has looked good. We're going to look at more this year. So I think our problem is finding dealers that will, will help get the product on the fertilizer. You know, we do a lot of fertilization in rice, so we're worried a little bit about cross-contamination there of rice.
[18:12] Larry Steckel
I don't think about, we don't have that here. So I see that where that would be a real issue.
[18:18] Tom Barber
But I think you know just finding the places to work and get it done. I think as we try more of it, I think it's going to be, it's going to be critical I think, in our overall crop management program for, for weeds, just as critical as those pre’s. And I know we kind of talked about earlier, we kind of got off, you know, went through it pretty quick. But for us, that Cotoran and Caparol been kind of a staple here lately because it's, it's cheap and it's good weed control and, you know, with some of our sandier soils we’ll cut those rates down a little bit and permit some injury. And we may only get two weeks, but it's two weeks of control that we wouldn't have got otherwise. So I think it's important. A lot of our cotton has grown on the, on the lighter dirt. We still have to do some convincing to talk to those growers into putting the pre out. I think they want to try to tackle it once the cotton is up with an early post, but you know as well as I do we get some rain like we've seen you know the last few weeks and we missed that application window. We're going to be, we've already lost yield. You know we're losing yield early that we can prevent. And so I know everybody's going to be in a big hurry to get these planters roll on this week, but we can't get ahead of our sprayer. That's hard to believe that I'm even saying that, but, that we could get ahead of a sprayer with 100-foot boom or whatever. But somehow we seem to do that. We get in a planting mode. And we forget about the spraying part. Uh so it . . .
[19:46] Larry Steckel
It’s planted so go.
[19:47] Tom Barber
And I'm also hearing on that Cotoran and Caparol may be a little short right now, may be some come in later, but then we've talked about substitutes over here like you just mentioned and so you know the warrant for us on that sand, I think there's several going with it, the prowl’s an option. You know one thing with prowl, once you say that prowl or really either one of them, you see the warrant or prowl, you never really forget you know, you don't you know, but it but the stars have to line up right for that to happen. I mean you know it's but it's not completely safe but if we want something out there for the grass it's got to be one of those two options in my mind to help us on the grass on the front end. So I think both of them are safer than putting dual with it.
[20:34] Larry Steckel
Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Both of them would be safer. Like you say, the stars got a line up wrong. But they, they can, and you know, it depends too. Like with prowl, we see a lot less injury with it on our, on our good, on our no till than we do with its till. You just don't get the splash, on the no tills rightly so we don't see quite as much issue with it just because of that. And, and we do have some of that going out. We have some that were going out with fertilizer too. Got a little bit of that coming back. So uh, you know, I think that's, that's a good way. But I, I don't have rice much over here. We got a little bit but we don't, we don’t have near the fertilizer going out with herbicides on rice. It would probably be bad to have peroxicelfone go on rice. Right?
[21:24] Tom Barber
Well yeah, I think so. We get a little reach back, you know. You never know from a contamination rate what that really is. You know, if you can get enough to cause you some issues. But I think that's just in the back of our, in the minds of these guys that are actually dealing with it and trying to put it on the fertilizer. And so obviously you don't want to set yourself up in a situation like that.
[21:50] Larry Steckel
No, no. I know over in middle east Tennessee, we got, we got a good bit of duracore that goes out with fertilizer, but I would not want to get that contaminated on my cotton. Right. Yeah. Yeah, that would be a bad day.
[22:04] Tom Barber
But I think, you know, we're going to have to be a little more innovative to help get some of these pig wed populations out of control or under control because they are out of control. And so, you know, the, the duals and warrants the citacloran, metalachlor, just not working on them as good as it used to. So we got just about every resistance that you can imagine over here in certain areas, so peroxicelfone in those fields is going to be important to help keep them clean season long I believe.
[22:35] Larry Steckel
Yeah, it's really, at least what I've seen. You know, we're seeing similar things over here in our side of the river, but we're losing some traction with, with dual and with outlook. We've got dicamba resistant pigweed. Starting to wonder a little bit now about Liberty. We’re doing some greenhouse screens, but peroxicefone is really the only thing that we're not seeing slit at this point.
[22:59] Tom Barber
Well we but I'm knocking on my wood desk right now because that, you know, those are dangerous words right there.
[23:06] Larry Steckel
They are. It's the, it's the little boy with the thumb in the dike. So, yeah, it's, it's we're getting down to it. We, we are in desperate need of a new herbicide mode of action that, that's active on pigweed and even now a little bit give us some axon to help on grass but we're really running ? that'll, I don't want to do this Tom, but we talk to our colleagues, you know, around the south, the North Delta bio type of Palmer amaranth it, it's, it's its own animal. It's just they just don't have the issues we got. I had never noticed that till about meeting you and I were sitting there. We were like, compared to everybody else, no one was, has had near the issues we did. I don't know what it is about, but it's a North Delta, too. It's only so far down the Mississippi and Louisiana.
[23:59] Tom Barber
So it, it is crazy. I mean, there's no imaginary line Louisiana , I’m not saying they don't have a problem with pigweed because I'm sure they do but it's not near what we have. And even in south Arkansas, those guys, we have pigweed but it's just never flourished as well down there as it does in that northeast Arkansas environment and so I don't know what, I never really understood why I guess, but the years I was working in Mississippi, you know, I guess I left there in ‘07. Our biggest issue in cotton in Mississippi was dealing with late season grasses and trying to remove the green stain out of the cotton quality. You know, we had so much grass causing green stain late, late in the year it seemed like and so we had to talk about putting Prowl and different lay-bys out to get that light season grass, those larger seeded grasses. So it just it's odd to me that pigweed is just such a tremendous issue in that northeast area. And it, it goes down south a little bit. And we have pigweeds in the south, but it's nothing like it is up there.
[25:07] Larry Steckel
Same here and that’s not in middle Tennessee. It's it's just it's just this west Tennessee that we're having these issues and it's almost like it's its own subspecies. I mean, it's just compared to, it just, just the way it overcomes herbicide after herbicide. And, you know, they're still having good luck with, with herbicides we've long forgotten about in other parts of the US and are still, still working on it, whether you, like Texas or even Georgia. So it's amazing. Well, we're seeing the first resistance to most of the herbicides we’re using today, and it's all along this North Delta.
[25:48] Tom Barber
Yeah. Well, all right. Well, we've been talking for about 30 minutes now. I probably need to wrap it up. Is there anything else burning that‘s on the top of your mind that need to be looking out for, specific things we need to pay attention to as we start cotton planting here this week?
[26:04] Larry Steckel
Well, I think you made a real did point of how quick this cotton crop will go in the ground and, and taking the time to get a residual herbicide out there, a pre herbicide is going to help us because we just don't have a lot of good post options for some of the grasses, being goosegrass or barnyard grass or Palmer Amaranth. So trying to keep them from ever coming up is our best defense
[26:30] Tom Barber
Absolutely. Absolutely. And whether we have thrips or not we need to be thinking about making an application around that one two stage of cotton you know with some residual.
[26:40] Larry Steckel
Exactly. Yeah the Thrive-on, I fear it’s going to change weed control issues that maybe we hadn't thought about before.
[26:48] Tom Barber
Yeah, that's a good point. Great point. Well, Larry, thanks for taking your time out of your day and joining with us today on the podcast. And I may try to rope you in the, you know, about mid-season, get you back. We talk about problems and issues that we had before then, but appreciate your time. Is there any, y'all have any meetings or anything coming up, you need to plug? I know it's kind of early.
[27:13] Larry Steckel
Yeah. One more weed tours June 21st, start at 9:00 registration’s 8:30. So yeah, So we're going to have that here at Jackson at the West Tennessee Research and Education Center. So pushing it back a week later this year, which I'm glad I did because the elements to think about planting cotton, so . . .
[27:34] Tom Barber
Right. Well and I'll just, you know, from my standpoint that's a, that's a great tour. A lot of people good, you know, good, good time to come look at some of those weed plots. If, if our listeners haven't ever been, I encourage you’ll to go over to Larrys tour because you see a lot in a day. See a lot of weed control in the day and it's good stuff. So I appreciate the invite last year. Larry. Got to go.
[27:58] Larry Steckel
Glad to have you Tom. Thanks for coming.
[28:01] Tom Barber
But yeah, that's a great deal. As for us, but I don't think we have anything on the calendar yet. We're not that proactive Larry. We just, you know, we throw things together at the last minute. Maybe not. Uh, but we just appreciate everyone tuning in to the podcast this week. Oh and again, if you have any questions about what we've talked about today, I won't share Larry's contact information, although I really want to. I'll hold off on that. But any questions you all can send us questions, you can email me at tbarber@uada.edu, or send me a text or call and we'll try to get those questions answered. So, Larry, thanks again. I want to thank everybody else for joining us on this episode of The Weeds AR Wild podcast series on Arkansas Row Crops Radio.
[28:47] Intro/Outro
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