I am very pleased to be able to take part in this conference.
I farm in an incorporated farm with my brother and my son in the Heward area near Stoughton, southeast of here. Our farm is classified as Weyburn Loam in the dark brown soil zone.
In opening, I would like to say that I am no expert on weed control; a true expert would have no weeds to be found on his or her farm. I am only indicating the ways in which we are attempting to control weeds. I sometimes feel that every weed known to man grows in our area, as we are constantly trying to control one species of weed or another.
On our farm, we started in a half & half rotation in the early 60's. We changed to minimum till and continuous cropping about 1980. At this time we followed a 4-year rotation of cereal-pulse-cereal-canola. We moved to direct seeding about 10 years later with an air seeder and gang packers. I was never satisfied with it. I felt it never did a complete job of seed placement and it was a poor job of packing.
In 1997, a direct seeding air drill was purchased with on-row packing. This drill was equipped with side banding fertilizer openers and it gave the crops a good quick start, which helped the crops to compete with weeds very effectively.
We always try to start our weed control program in the previous fall with a glyphosate product, at various rates depending on the types of weeds present. We try to scout the fields ahead of the sprayer to determine which weeds are present, and then we use a rate to kill those weeds.
In some cases, we spray in-crop to control weeds like Kochia and Canada Thistle so when the field is harvested none of the tops are cut off. If conditions are right, we may spray after harvest to get any wild oats or other weeds that may go to seed before freeze-up.
During the fall spraying operation, the sprayer goes through all low ground and areas that were too wet to seed the previous spring in order to at least control the perennials, even though most of these weeds have gone to seed. If these areas can be seeded through the next year, the weed pressure is reduced somewhat.
The following spring, a chemical such as Edge, is applied at full spring rate on the ground that is slated to go into pulse crops such as lentils. Edge is applied with a Valmar spreader on a heavy harrow, which is as close to a tillage operation as you will get on our farm. The exception is the tandem disc in the sloughs in the fall. At times, some of these low areas are not worked at all, if they can be burned off. Our Seed Hawk will seed directly into them, and does an excellent job.
The first seeding to take place in the spring is usually a Canola, if it hasn't been fall seeded. Canola is seeded shallow at about ¾ inch deep and the crop comes up fairly quickly in the seed row, getting ahead of most weeds.
A Roundup Ready or Smart variety is always used, so that any new weeds can be sprayed off with up to 2 sprayings. The problem we have with this method is Wild Buckwheat. If the weed can be sprayed young enough, the Roundup takes care of it. We have found that we can use up to ¾ litre per acre on the first spraying as that is when the young Canola plants are most resistant to Round-up. After that only ½ litre is used.
If the buckwheat timing is missed for some reason, we have used Lontrel as a back up, but we don't like to go that route, as it adds heavily to the variable cost per acre. Usually after the second spraying, the crop is advanced enough to stay ahead of most weeds.
The next crop to be seeded is usually our pulse crops, which can be the most challenging as far as weed control. These are seeded much deeper, at about 1.5 inches, so that if we have to use Sencor on lentils, there is less damage to them. After the Lentils and Peas are seeded, we wait until just before the crop comes up to spray Roundup and get a kill on as many weeds as possible.
Using this method can be very stressful, as the weather has to be taken into account.
A wet spell could put the spraying operation behind and the crop could emerge before the spraying is carried out. After the crop is up and growing, control of grassy weeds is almost always necessary.
Peas are handled the same way as the Lentils, except they are put on the land that we have more of a weed problem with compared to the land seeded to lentils. Peas are sprayed with Odyssey because it is cheaper than a combination of Edge plus a grassy weed product.
After these 2 crops are in the ground, crops like Canary seed and Barley are then planted.
If weeds are not up and growing so they can be sprayed before the air dill goes to the field, the spraying of Roundup takes place either before or about the time the crop is coming up.
We haven't waited for Canary seed to start to emerge to spray with Round-up, but most other cereals can be sprayed this way. The trouble is that if wild oats are starting to emerge, they don't kill off because they are a similar family to the crop. Wild oats have to be sprayed later with a specific wild oat herbicide.
After the Barley and Canary seed are planted, Durum and Spring Wheat come next. These crops including barley are seeded at least 2 bushels per acre to produce as much crop competition as possible and provide shade to hold down the young weeds.
If there are no weeds present or very few weeds at seeding time, the spraying of Roundup is held off until after the crop is in the ground and then monitored for time of emergence.
Weed control in-crop takes place as soon as possible after the maximum number of weeds have emerged. Chemical herbicide groups are varied as much as possible to prevent the build-up of resistance in weeds.
We consider a good seeding job with above average seeding rates and well placed fertilizer in combination with on-row packing to enable the crop to get off to a quick start to be a big start to a successful weed control program.
The Drill that we use is a 1 foot spacing which some may question as good weed competition, and it is a bit of a concern. I don't think we could use a ten and a half inch machine because of trash clearance. Plugging would be a problem in damp seeding conditions and would result in poor seed placement and openings in the crop to allow weeds to grow. I have found that any time there is a seeding miss or a weak crop stand, something will fill in that space even later in the growing season, resulting in green weeds for the harvest operation.
We try not to use reduced herbicide ratesanymore, as we tried this approach a number of years ago, and the results were not good. It cost money and crop loss for some years after. One of the lessons from the school of hard knocks.
Weed pressures and the types of weeds have changed somewhat on our farm as the type of farming has changed. I would have to say that our worst weeds at present are Kochia, wild Buckwheat and Canada Thistle, in that order.
When Lentils are grown, if a very special job of weed control hasn't taken place the previous year, there has always been a problem with Canada Thistle and Kochia in part or all of the field.
We try to straight cut all our crops if possible. Cereals are all straight cut. Peas are the exception, and depend on the variety. Yellow Swing peas are left to be straight cut if at all possible.
Thank you very much for this opportunity.