We farm in the Sibald, Alberta area, which is just across the straw curtain to the west on highway 7 past Kindersley. We currently have 2400 cultivated acres and are very close to cropping all acres every year. Our area is in the brown to light brown soil zone with an average wind speed of 67 kph. Our 30 year average total precipitation is 12 inches. We live in a dry area but some neighbours complain that our land gets more rain than theirs. Nine to ten years ago under full tillage, we started continuous cropping a ¼ section, with no idea what we were doing or where we were going. The reason we started continuous cropping was to stop wind erosion on our lightest land. That light land is now some of our most productive, while some local soil now has a different area code. Over the years, we experimented with a variety of rented no-till machines, with results varying from awesome to nothing. Over the winter of 94-95, we turned our minds toward no-till and have had excellent results since. We rented a different machine in 95 and liked it so much we bought one.
So then, what IS a weed? Webster's says a weed is "a plant growing where it is not desired". This raises another question: When is it a weed? Take Canola and other volunteer crops, Cattle graze them after harvest therefore they are not weeds because cows "desire" them.
Before switching to no-till, we had weeds such as Flixweed, Kochia, Stinkweed, Wild Millet, Cow Cockle, Russian Thistle, and Pigweed. Foxtail Barley, Canada Thistle and grassy weeds were all present, but minor in numbers. Now Canada Thistle is growing, Quackgrass is spreading, Foxtail Barley is bushing out, and Narrow-Leaved Hawk's-Beard is bolting. We also have Annual Smartweed in low spots and Horsetail showing up ( 2.5 L of Rustler /acre didn't even slow them down.). Dandelion is taking over the chem-fallow when given the opportunity. Weeds on the decline include Stinkweed, Wild Millet, and Wild Oats.
We have noticed a difference on two parcels of our land, one is fenced, and the other is not. The one that is fenced is grazed by cattle every year and has more Flixweed, Stinkweed and other weeds that the cows won't eat. The other parcel has lots of Wild Oats and volunteer crops. The reason: the cows heavily stress the 'crops' by grazing, therefore the undesirables flourish whereas without the grazing pressure the early competitors (Wild Oats, etc.) win the race. This leads us to wonder/wander about our standard weed control speech.
Our standard method of weed control is pre-seeding burn off (ALWAYS) and in-crop spray. We also spray post-harvest for Winter Annuals when necessary and post-harvest for Quackgrass, Canada Thistle, etc. This has proven successful under ideal conditions. We would like to do a pre-harvest spray but lack the equipment to do so except in our dreams. There is no custom applicator in our area, but there is talk of one in 98. We also do a "4-legged" post-harvest control every year on most acres by using our cows. This type of control is also good for residue management and surface leveling.
In a 5-year rotation, each plant is only a crop for 4½ months out of 60, therefore the rest of the time it is a weed. If you manage things a little differently they are not weeds. Cows graze our cropland two months a year, every year, or 10 months out of 60. That is more than twice as long as any plant is a crop in our planned rotation. We try to manage our land to take advantage of nature's tendencies. For example, fall is the best time to control both annual and perennial weeds and cows like most grassy plants. So why not let your cows graze your volunteer crops and grassy weeds instead of spraying them? The very least that this will do is weaken the plants so a pre-seeding burn off will finish them off. Another example: some grains have a tendency to be a volunteer problem in the years following their crop year. This causes us to ask if there is a suitable substitute with less likelihood of volunteering. Consequently, Canary seed and Oats are under our delete button.
We have found that short season crops work better for us because the late season crops delay harvest by 2 to 3 weeks, therefore robbing moisture and nutrients from that field. This will result in much poorer crops the following year. A poor crop cannot compete with weeds. Another drawback of a delayed harvest is the delayed grazing pressure on all the other fields in that block of land, which results in less/poorer weed control.
We have experimented with a second method of weed control, which combines several concepts for one complete package.
We like to feed our cows out on the fields in the late fall and on into winter. We have found that the crop on those few acres the following year is phenomenal; thick and lush, with little or no late flush of weeds.
Taking a page from Nature's book, this area of North America has been here as we know it for almost 10,000 years, since the last ice age. Modern farming has been here for only the last 100 years or so. Our present day weed spectrum was started about the same time as man began tilling the soil. The year round crop competition and continuous cropping of nature worked well as weed control.
A third successful weed control method we stumbled onto by accident. On May 22, in wet conditions in the spring of 96, when spring seeding a chem-fallow field that was infested with Foxtail Barley, we sprayed with 0.4 L Roundup. We had planned on seeding it that day, but it rained 4 hours later. On May 29 we sprayed with 0.5 L Roundup and had total eradication of the Foxtail Barley ( 95-96 the SSCA. started to experiment with split applications on foxtail Barley).
So let's re-graze this topic. On our farm, chemical is not the only form of weed control. We are trying to look at all the options available; and one of those, the cows, really takes a bite out of our weed problem. We use cattle to reduce weed pressure in the fall and reduce the out of pocket cost of weed control while adding money making pounds. However, if the cows are going to work for us, then we have to work with them by giving them plants that they desire. We have re-examined our weed control from horn to hoof and found cattle to be a very viable and manageable option in controlling weeds on our farm. Weeds, as you know, don't come with an operator's manual. Accordingly, resourcefulness and imagination can make weed control more effective, more profitable and less stressful