Herbicide Resistance Management: Putting the Cuffs on Weed Escape
October 2, 2024 During the recent Tech Hub LIVE event in Des Moines, IA, David Reddel CCA RMS, Director of Agronomy Risk for Wilbur-Ellis Agribusiness, presented a roundtable on herbicide resistance and weed escape.
In his role at Wilbur-Ellis, Reddel oversees the crop claims that are submitted by growers. This gives him a front-row seat to what’s happening across the industry and in the field.
“One of the biggest trends I see right now is weed escape,” said Reddel.
As a grower himself, Reddel relates with growers’ desires to “keep things simple,” which means “clean fields, high yields, and the lowest costs possible,” even though cost containment is increasingly difficult if the intention is to do things correctly, he noted.
Several factors are contributing to weed escape, he said, listing resistance, application timing, crop stage, label restrictions and labor, with the latter among the least controllable.
“Label restrictions are coming at us, and it’s not going to get any easier,” he said. “When you look at the tools we have, every product has label and labor restrictions. With more focus on sustainability and stewardship, along with endangered species, this means we’re going to have to step up our game as an industry to make sure we’re [compliant], and taking care to identify where sensitive crops are, and where the endangered insects are.”
The potential impact is that while a grower may have a perfect day to spray, “Suddenly, the wind can come up in the wrong direction, for example, and the grower can’t target that field today. It could be another week, which could be too late,” explained Reddel.
Leaning on Ag Tech
Although Reddel described his early years in agriculture as “old school without a lot of technology,” the ability to apply technology to the challenge of weed escape helps retailers and growers immensely, starting with asking the right questions, finding solutions, and improving communication and setting expectations.
“We’ve got so many tools in our arsenal now in terms of identifying where weed escape is occurring,” he said, “including soil sampling and tissue sampling.”
Determining where the weed escape is happening; if it was there last year; what chemistries where applied and how effective was it – these are some of the questions explored both internally and with growers, and which can largely be answered with data.
Ultimately, data can be used to help the grower succeed, he noted, “and everyone wants the grower to succeed.”
Redefining the Retailer
Consolidation is changing the ag retail landscape, “and we’re really challenged as an industry to figure out how to adapt to that,” said Reddel.
At the same time, growers are getting bigger, while agriculture remains a 24/7 job.
“We struggle to get people to do that because we’re stuck in a linear mindset. We think the workday is 8 am to 5 pm. Well, we need to figure out how to do split shifts and get more creative across the board.”
The combination of consolidation in the retail space and growers getting bigger creates a dilemma for the industry.
“For the agronomists who are pounding the pavement every day, it’s becoming harder to successfully cover all these acres,” Reddel acknowledged.
While ag tech can positively impact how and when the retailers’ work gets done, retailers must also improve communication with growers about what constitutes “full service,” added Reddel.
“We need to equip the grower and set expectations about what full service means for them,” he emphasized.
For instance, “Some growers simply want the cheapest product and want us to spray. We can absolutely do that. However, the grower needs to be responsible for scouting the fields, whether it’s putting boots on the ground or using some of the excellent ag tech tools like satellite imagery, drones, or See & Spray.”
Indeed, drones are an important tool that retailers can offer growers, particularly when it comes to spot spraying for managing weed escape.
“We’re even seeing it used with insecticides and fungicides this year with all the drown-outs in Iowa, South Dakota, and parts of Nebraska,” said Reddel.
If a grower has 20 or 30 acres within a 100-acre field that has stunted corn or drowned-out beans and it’s not going to produce much, “then you don’t want to send a ground rig over it, while a plane isn’t going to be able to get that accurate,” said Reddel.
“This is where drones come in. We can fly these fields, make management zones of where the weed pockets are, or in the case of insecticides and fungicides, cut off a section of the field that we know isn’t going to be highly productive.”
The conversation leads back to managing expectations, defining full service, and agronomics versus economics – a topic Reddel said he talks about frequently.
“We can do economics all day. We can cut this or that out of the mix and we can put together a cheaper package. However, we can’t guarantee it’s going to work, and if it doesn’t, sometimes the grower doesn’t want to pay for it,” he said.
Meanwhile, “Economics is a bandage, a short-term solution. When that bandage comes off, what’s the cost to heal those issues in your field? On the other hand, agronomics is an investment in your future.”
Growers are in the midst of a tough economic environment right now with unfavorable commodity prices, higher cost of inputs, and inflation.
“Those are legitimate concerns,” said Reddel.
For that reason, “We need to have good conversations between the retailers, agronomists, and growers, so we can make long-term plans and take the right steps to fight weeds in the field, which is a very big issue out there right now.”
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