Nothing in farming is simple any more — if it ever was.
There have been times, though, when choosing herbicide wasn’t quite so difficult. If you were growing Roundup Ready canola, for instance, you chose Roundup. Simple.
Unfortunately, doing things the easy way is coming back to haunt us, in the form of herbicide resistance. Make no mistake: this is a big issue, and if we don’t wrestle it down, it’s going to get bigger.
It was one of the primary issues under discussion at the Weed Science Society of America’s annual meeting in Vancouver last week, and while that may not have been a news flash, the ground staked by the chemical companies was.
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Chemical companies have long advocated, at least officially, for chemical mixing and crop rotation. What’s new is that they are speaking out more assertively on these points, while warning farmers that weed control is about to get a lot more expensive.
Easy and cheap weed control is over, the meeting heard.
“It will never be that way again,” said Arlene Cotie of Bayer Crop-Science.
Bayer is one of many groups and companies initiating campaigns to encourage farmers to rotate crops — and herbicides.
For example, a two-page Cargill ad in the WP last week sported the headline Uproot a Growing Threat: consider herbicide resistance when creating crop protection plans this year. The ad is signed by Cargill’s agronomy manager, Lisa Eastley.
If farmers buy this messaging, there is a lot to gain for chemical companies — notably higher margins and the longer-term efficacy of products.
That being said, it beats the old mantra. As Agriculture Canada’s Neil Harker noted, this is a philosophical shift for the crop science industry.
“What they had been doing is taking the best product and flogging it for as long as it would live,” he told WP reporter Robert Arnason in an interview.
Now, their message is that better practices will benefit everyone in the long run. Some might be skeptical over the potential financial boost to the companies’ bottom lines but it is right in principle.
Count on hearing more and more about integrated weed management.
It’s the right thing to do.
