Cleaning Farm Machinery can prevent weed spread
Herbicides are the most widely used tool to control weeds, but they aren't the only tactic that you can use to prevent your field against weeds. Jeff Mueller, BASF agronomist, talks about how each field in a farmer's operation will look different when it comes to weed control.
"So, you know, we've kind of been relying on chemistry for quite a while. The problem with that being is when we do that, we start getting some weeds that can become resistance or get more resistance built up to those herbicides, or we just don't kill them as well as we used to. So, we can get in some fields where we might not be getting as good as other fields, and then some other fields we could be having still some really good control," Mueller said.
Mueller explains why it might be harmful to your operation to not check your machinery before
moving fields.
"On your combine, when you're harvesting, when you're, you get weed feeds that get caught
up in the feeder house, the rock trap in the headers of those combines. And if you have that
on a field where you have poor weed control or you have some resistance, or you've been challenged with controlling those weeds, and you go then to the next field where you've had good weed control, and you don't have that potential resistance. If you jump right into that field without harvest equipment and start harvesting, you've now just transferred that more herbicide, tolerant, or potential resistant weed seed over to that field, and you've created a whole new problem," Mueller said.
Cleaning your equipment can be quick and make a difference.
"A lot of people that I talk to, they've got one of those portable air blowers where they can go
and just blow the head out with that, and then clean out a lot of that stuff, and just open those
up and knock off any trash that might be in the back that might be coming out of the rear of the combine where all the trash comes through, clean that off to making sure that what you're doing,your most due diligence of trying to keep from transferring that dirty field or that weed seed from that field to the next," Mueller said.
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