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Showing posts from September, 2017

Herbicides alone cannot adequately manage herbicide-resistant weeds -- Thoughts regarding planning for next year's soybean crop

Jeff Gunsolus, Lisa Behnken and Fritz Breitenbach As we enter the fall harvest, many will be evaluating what soybean variety to select for next year. No longer is the focus solely on yield and tolerances to disease, iron chlorosis, and nematodes. This fall, farmers, consultants and advisors will be asking questions regarding how label modifications, if any, to the newly introduced dicamba formulations of Xtendimax, FeXapan, and Engenia might affect their variety selection decisions. The conundrum is that discussions at EPA and State Departments of Agriculture assessing the impact of this year’s off-target events on next year’s label will likely extend well into the fall. As you strategize future weed management plans, we would like for all of us to rethink the dicamba issue. Think about what brought on this issue in the first place: weed resistance to multiple groups of herbicides. As herbicide resistance increases and spreads, farmers are compelled to shoulder added risk an