Complete zero-till cropping in the Brown soil zone is difficult because of the potential weed problems with foxtail barley (also called wild barley). Foxtail barley is the greatest production challenge faced when we eliminate tillage and seed directly with low-disturbance drills. Once foxtail barley is well established in a field, zero tillage wheat production becomes much less profitable than conventional-tillage management systems because of the high cost of chemical weed control. The Swift Current Semiarid Agricultural Prairie Research Centre has grown spring wheat since 1982 with conventional, reduced, and zero-tillage in a two-year rotation with fallow and a continuous rotation. Each rotation and tillage management system exists on a sandy loam, silt loam, and heavy clay. When tillage was eliminated, foxtail barley became a serious problem within two to four years after initiation of the studies. This occurred in both rotations on all soil types. Being shallow rooted, foxtail barley is readily controlled by tillage. Thus, it is usually not a problem weed in either the reduced or conventional tillage systems. Foxtail barley is a short-lived perennial which is very competitive. It is a prolific seed producer and the seeds can survive both in and on the soil for several years. The seeds are wind dispersed. There are no selective herbicides for controlling foxtail barley in a cereal crop. Spraying glyphosate (Laredo, Roundup, Victor, or Wrangler) in chemical fallow, or before seeding wheat, at 0.3 to 0.4 L of product per acre controls foxtail barley seedlings and often suppresses established plants. But, once foxtail barley is well established, chemical control is difficult. Glyphosate at 1.0 L per acre has provided good control of established plants in some years. In other years, especially when the foxtail barley is stressed, we have found control of foxtail barley to be difficult, even at higher rates of glyphosate. Problems with foxtail barley control are greatest in the Brown soil zone because this weed is often more drought stressed and thereby less susceptible to herbicide compared to other soil zones. In zero-tillage wheat production systems, we recommend that a routine preseeding application of glyphosate be used, even when there appears to be very few weeds, so as to control the difficult-to-see foxtail barley seedlings. Where foxtail barley is starting to move in from the field edges, tilling the outside of the field should be considered. Tillage every two to three years can be an economical way to control foxtail barley in a reduced-tillage wheat rotation. In a companion experiment, we have seeded stubble spring wheat, with and without preseeding tillage, in a wheat-wheat-fallow rotation. For the fallow phase of this experiment, we sprayed all the plots with a glyphosate-dicamba mix in late May and then tilled twice during the summer. These fallow operations kept the foxtail barley from becoming a problem while still providing excellent residue coverage for erosion control. Over the last four years, direct-seeded stubble wheat has averaged 10% higher yield than the stubble wheat which received preseeding tillage. This annual yield increase is explained by the better water conservation and lower evaporative stress provided by direct seeding. In contrast, our long-term zero-tillage continuous wheat system described earlier has yielded exactly the same as our conventional-tillage continuous wheat system. In these continuous wheat systems, we believe the competition from the foxtail barley which escaped control from the preseeding application of glyphosate erased the potential yield advantage of direct seeding. The benefits of direct seeding, i.e. improved water conservation, minimal soil erosion, less labour and machinery operation costs, increased soil organic matter, and increased nutrient supplying power, are real and worth pursuing. However, diligent control of foxtail barley, possibly with the occasional use of tillage, is necessary to make direct seeded wheat rotations successful in the brown soil zone.