Kochia is one of the Prairies’ more damaging weeds. And with three years of known resistance to glyphosate and many more Group 2 herbicides under its belt, the pest has found new ways to avoid farmer control. It has also developed Groups 4 and 5 resistance in North Dakota and Montana. Kochia, Kochia scoparia, is […] Read more
Tag Archives Weed of the Week Archive — page 3
Weed of the Week: cleavers
Cleavers are something many producers would like to chop from their fields. The twisting and ropy vine-like weeds tangle through the crop, using up nutrients, water and farmers’ patience at harvest time. Galium aparine and Galium spurium, also known as false cleavers, are designated noxious under the Weed Control Act. False cleavers have a notch […] Read more
Weed of the Week: redroot pigweed
Redroot pigweed is an early season competitor to crops, vying for expensive nutrients and water. It has also developed a taste for some Group 2 chemistries in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, meaning that it limits the effectiveness of popular products like Refine, Deploy and Nimble (thifensulfuron and Tribenuron) as well as others. It has also adapted […] Read more
Weed of the Week: shepherd’s purse
Capsella bursa-pastoris was limited to wetter areas and field edges when tillage was common. However, reduced tillage created new opportunities for the winter annual weed, which is more commonly known as shepherd’s purse. Along with narrow-leaved hawk’s beard, cleavers, flixweed and stinkweed, this member of the mustard family appears early in spring to rob fields […] Read more
Weed of the Week: stinkweed
Seed identification features
Stinkweed’s name sets it apart from most other happy-sounding weeds such as dandelion, lamb’s quarters and buckwheat. It hasn’t got a rebellious name such as wild oats or locoweed, but it can make itself known when eaten by cows. However, it’s main sin is that it costs farmers money. It is fairly easy to kill […] Read more
Weed of the week: wild oats
Wild oats have been hurting yields and spoiling tame oat samples for generations. And with increasing instances of herbicide resistance, prairie farmers’ fight with the pest isn’t ending any time soon. Hugh Beckie of Agriculture Canada’s Saskatoon Research Centre said wild oats remain of the 10 worst annual weeds that cereal producers must contend with […] Read more
Weed of the Week: flixweed
Flixweed is well known to farmers of the southwestern Prairies and the U.S. Plains as a stubborn pest wherever soil is lighter or traditionally drier. Also known as tansy mustard, this brassica has remained a problem since the days of tillage summer fallow. Its persistence and yellow flowers likely gave it the tansy name, derived […] Read more
Weed of the Week: Horesetail
Most farmers in the brown soil zone haven’t had the pleasure of meeting horsetail. The darker the soil and the further north farmers are located, the greater the likelihood that they have had to deal with this challenging pest. Known formally as equisetum arvense, horsetail is not your average weed. It is an ancient plant […] Read more
Weed of the Week: dock
Whether they call it curly dock, narrow-leaved dock, sour dock or yellow dock, for farmers it is usually a sign of water, a sprayer miss, or both. Standing above most crops, dock is a perennial with the ability to produce high numbers of seeds. Its single, sometimes forked, large taproot has allowed it to flourish […] Read more
Weed of the Week: green foxtail
Call it what you will — bottle grass, green bristlegrass, green millet, pigeon grass, wild millet or, as it best known in Western Canada, green foxtail — the weed is becoming a growing problem for prairie farmers. Less tillage has had many positive effects on agriculture, but it has also resulted in more weeds. One […] Read more
