Handling Both Expected and Unexpected Weed Issues
Weeds can be hard to draw a bead on. A.J. Woehl of San Angelo, Texas, has seen glyphosate-resistant Palmer amaranth spread the last couple of years. He says now it’s in every field he farms in the Concho Valley.
“I saw quite a bit last year, but it ran rampant this year,” Woehl says.
This year, the surprise challenge came from devil’s claw, a pesky broadleaf weed that his usual herbicides couldn’t handle.
Woehl planted some PhytoGen® cottonseed with the Enlist® trait. Where he used Enlist One® herbicide on that cotton, he was able to take care of both the devil’s claw and the Palmer amaranth.
“The Enlist One worked very well,” Woehl says. “I haven’t seen any misses.”
Appreciating cottonseed vigor
Woehl chose PhytoGen W3FE varieties based on the performance of the cottonseed.
“PhytoGen is always pretty good,” he says. “I like the vigor. It just blows out of the ground. You can almost watch it come up. That gives us a good stand. It’s also pretty drought tolerant. It’s all-around good cotton.”
The W3FE varieties also gave him another tool to control glyphosate-resistant weeds and volunteer cotton that didn’t contain the Enlist trait. It fit well in his herbicide program this year.
Woehl started with a residual “yellow” herbicides preemergence. He followed with Enlist One tank-mixed with Roundup PowerMax®, which provided two additional modes of action.
Staying on target
“The conditions when I sprayed were excellent,” Woehl says. Wind speeds were 5-8 miles per hour. “There’s a lot of dicamba-tolerant cotton around, and I didn’t touch any of it. I didn’t have any problem keeping Enlist One on target.”
Woehl communicated with neighbors to let them know a couple of weeks ahead that he would be applying Enlist One herbicide. He followed the label and neither saw nor heard from his neighbors about any off-target movement.
“I’m not afraid to spray Enlist One herbicide,” he said.
As for yield, Woehl expects his PhytoGen cottonseed to produce a good quantity. However, two storm systems in September dumped 8-plus inches of rain on open bolls. He’s worried about how that may affect quality.
The good news is his weed control was excellent, both on Palmer amaranth – which he expected – and on strong devil’s claw pressure – which was unexpected.
“Enlist was the only thing that was pretty much faultless this year,” Woehl says. “No weeds got by it.”
