When glyphosate-tolerant soybeans made their appearance on the Prairies people were very excited about the crop and the potential for good weed control. It turned out, though, that there was one fly in the ointment, and that was volunteer glyphosate-tolerant canola.
Although early attempts at soybeans sometimes looked more like canola fields, there are some management practices that can give you clean fields and good results. In this episode of Soybean School RealAgriculture field editor, Dale Leftwich, talks to SaskPulse’s agronomy specialist Glenda Clezy (in a very windy soybean plot) about ways to keep your soybeans volunteer canola free. (story continues below)
Clezy points out, “The majority of our soybeans do have tolerance to glyphosate and so when you are applying glyphosate if you do not have anything else in the tank as a mixture with that you are going to be left with any volunteer Roundup Ready canola plants that are in the field.”
Because soybeans are slow starters, the canola can really stunt their growth and limit their productivity. As Clezy points out, “Soybeans are not a very competitive crop early on. Really, it’s important to keep your soybean fields weed-free from the time of emergence up to about the third trifoliate stage.”
Clezy explains that a good start could start the year before: “What we really recommend is to get something on early, and that can be in the fall, if you are looking at a residual herbicide product or early in the spring either as pre-seed or pre-emergent type product.”
Further, there are products that will continue to control volunteer canola throughout the season. Clezy says, “Then we also encourage, especially depending on your weed spectrum, a second application in crop.”
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