Weeds are a familiar nemesis to crop farmers, and Jon Kohrt, product development manager at Valent U.S.A., says planning for the 2027 growing season can start this fall with a proactive approach.
While farmers are harvesting, Kohrt said, they should inspect fields from the combine. From inside the cab they can get a good view of what herbicides were effective against Palmer amaranth, common waterhemp, marestail, giant ragweed, grasses and other weeds.
Farmers can record their observations with voice notes or a notepad and avoid relying only on a yield monitor, he said. Yield numbers are important in evaluating a field’s production, but weed pressure affects the current year and future years. Knowing which parts of a field have higher weed counts can help a grower plan his strategy.
“You don’t want everything that you’ve done in the early spring and what you’ve paid for to not carry the results through to harvest,” Kohrt said. “If you have new weeds emerging and new things coming back, they can be contributing back to the weed seed bank and you’re just going to keep having perennial problems.”
Combating weeds for the 2027 season may include a post-harvest application of a herbicide. Making sure equipment is clean also can reduce the transfer of weed seeds to other fields.
“Care of equipment is very important. Even tillage equipment, if you’re moving it from field to field, try to clean it off as much as possible,” Kohrt said, adding that power washing equipment takes time, but is effective. “Several weed-resistant biotypes have been spread through combines.”
When growers return to plant corn next spring, he advises using multiple modes of action, applying residual herbicides and using a planned two-pass program rather than relying on one post-emergence application.
Kohrt said Maverick Corn Herbicide is an effective tool when used with the two-pass system. The first application can be at or near planting time, and the second pass can be done when corn reaches the V4 to V6 growth stages. Once the plants have a good canopy, the weeds have a much harder time emerging because the corn leaves shield the ground from the sun.
Maverick is labeled for field corn, sweet corn and yellow popcorn and can be used across existing corn traits, Kohrt said, adding that application rates depend on conditions. He urged growers to closely read and follow label directions.
“Maybe a spot spray is needed in the middle of the season, but we can’t get away from two passes,” he said. “I know the one pass is popular when commodity prices are down. Farmers want to spend less, but to get after those yield-robbing weeds you really need to have a strong pre- and overlapping post-emergence program.”
“It’s really reinforcing the uses of multiple modes of action and residuals to get some of these weeds before they get out of the ground,” Kohrt said. “If you look at weeds like Palmer amaranth, common waterhemp, marestail, giant ragweed, there’s so much (herbicide) resistance within these populations that having a good mixture of Maverick from Valent— with multiple modes of action—has residual and post-emergence control.”
Kohrt said growers in some regions may also be able to incorporate wheat into their corn-soybean rotation to help combat pesky weeds.
One reason Kohrt recommends Maverick is that he said it is effective even in drought conditions because of its water solubility, which means it can stay on the soil surface without breaking down and then be active when it does rain.
For more information, see a dealer, contact a rep or visit Valent.com.
Dave Bergmeier can be reached at 620-227-1822 or [email protected].
