Canada fleabane can be a real pain for edible bean growers growers but University of Guelph weed scientist Dr. Isabelle Aicklen is looking to change that.
Earlier this year, Aicklen was named the new Ontario Bean Growers professor in weed management at the University of Guelph and one of her first priorities is to tackle the troublesome annual weed for which growers have limited pre-emerge and in-crop control options.
On this episode of RealAgriculture's Edible Bean School, Aicklen and Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness weed specialist Mike Cowbrough take a look at her first research trials designed to identify efficacious control options for Canada fleabane.
In these trials at the Elora Research Station, Aicklen is testing different herbicide active ingredients that are not yet registered for pre-plant burndown for Canada fleabane to evaluate efficacy and also determine whether the chemistry delivers an acceptable level of crop safety.
If herbicides meet the weed control and crop safety benchmarks, Aicklen will then move to a third phase of the research that will look at how they could be integrated into grower management practices, including tillage, reduced tillage and no-till systems.
In the video, Cowbrough and Aicklen focus on some of the promising active ingredients in the plots, identifying treatments that appear to deliver strong control and will likely warrant further evaluation in the next phase of the research. Tap here for more Edible Bean School videos.
