Resistant Ryegrass

Remraf

New Member
Location
Surrey
We have massive issues with resistant ryegrass here in South Australia. If it’s relevant to your work I’m happy to chat through our strategies either here or through dm’s.

Yeah would be great to hear what you guys are doing, its all relevant, personally interested in rotational, cultural, mechanical controls. Did read something about double knock down using glyphosate then following in with 'sprayseed' I've not come across sprayseed before?
I don't mind if want to DM but if you post on here might be useful information to others with similar problem if your happy to share?
 

CornishTone

Member
BASIS
Location
Cornwall
Yes, “double knock” is one of the strategies that’s proving successful in a program. Sprayseed is Paraquat + Diquat mixed together so not an option in some countries... but the idea is you’d spray with Glyphosate first then a few weeks later hit it with Gramoxone or Sprayseed.
 

Remraf

New Member
Location
Surrey
Ryegrass can be a lot more green and bulky in a crop than blackgrass so more damaging to yield.

If a field is bad wholecrop it before it drops seed and grow a crop of maize. Easy to smash with nicosulfuron.

you're right - 1.8 plants per square metre to reduce crop yields by 2% where blackgrass needs 10 plants per square metre for the same reduction.

but if you've got ALS TSR then nicosulfuron wont be smashing anything?
 

Remraf

New Member
Location
Surrey
Not all blackgrass resistant to Atlantis is resistant to Nico, worth having it tested.
We are talking ryegrass here not blackgrass. It is being tested, but I don't think the long term solution for any resistance problem is to spray it with a product from the same chemical family with the same mode of action.
 
We are talking ryegrass here not blackgrass. It is being tested, but I don't think the long term solution for any resistance problem is to spray it with a product from the same chemical family with the same mode of action.

Sorry, my mistake, but the point still stands. Just because something is resistant to atlantis does not mean it is resistant to nico.

Anyway, I am not advocating people try using my approach repeatedly year after year as that will result in resistance. It is a tool one may consider using in conjunction with other methods. A switch to maize or other spring cropping may help, as will ploughing or roguing.

If any arable farm has a serious issue with ryegrass, letting a local livestock man grow maize on it, with the stipulation that he will muck/slurry it and plough it and leave a clean stubble (ie decent spraying strategy) will clean the land up at no expense to the arable farmer.
 

CornishTone

Member
BASIS
Location
Cornwall
Went to our Southern Agronomy Conference this week. Death by power point for 5 days but, quite a bit on herbicide resistance and a big focus on Ryegrass.

First, the scary bit, especially for us in SA...
IMG_8575.JPG

Ryegrass with resistance to multiple MOAs are on the rise. The table below represents Ryegrass from one paddock in southern NSW!
IMG_8576.JPG

Mostly out of carelessness over the last 30 odd years and the attitude that “they’ll come up with something sort it out”.

However, there is a big push towards integrated weed management and, in particular, non-chemical control.

So, the “Big 6”...
IMG_8577.JPG


1. Diverse rotations I shouldn’t have to explain to you.

2. Double knock involves glyphosate followed by Paraquat 2-5 days later, so is not open to those of you in the UK, which is a shame because it is very handy!

3. Mix & Rotate refers to herbicide options/MOAs both pre and post em, again I shouldn’t need to explain that. You could add stacking of pre-ems to that also.

4. Crop competition. Loads of work being done here around new and more competitive varieties but some of the most interesting results are coming from simply narrowing the sowing widths. Most around here are on 9-10” spacing. Some even go out to 12-15” but in the east they’re finding that for every inch narrower you sow you not only get a 1% increase in yield but a drop in Ryegrass heads. A lot have gone back to 7” spacing or narrower and are chuffed with the results.

5. Stop weed seed set. This centres around our friends the animals! Either grazing weeds in a pasture rotation to prevent seed set, or cutting crops for hay before hey can set viable seed. It also mentions summer fallow weeds being knocked out but, again that doesn’t relate to UK.

6. HWSC (Harvest Weed Seed Control). If you can get your weed seeds into the combine, you can deal with them...
IMG_8578.JPG

There are a number of methods that reduce viable seeds coming out the back of the header.

A) Narrow Windrow Burning. Fairly self explanatory and probably illegal in the UK.

B) Chaff lining. Basically you funnel the chaff (not straw) containing the weed seeds into a very narrow line behind the combine. As this rots down the weeds will tend to germinate and fail because their roots can’t reach soil, or they can be eaten by sheep. Great results from the latter and a good option for sheep farmers.

C) Chaff decks. Similar to above but splits the chaff out on to the two combine wheel marks. This needs CTF as the wheel marks should be in the same place each year. Year on year chaff means better, more resilient tram lines and you can more easily deal with what comes up. If spraying, you just have to spray the tramlines for example.

D) Direct baling. Not rocket science! Strap the second most unreliable machine behind the most unreliable machine on the farm and hope for the best! The idea being nothing gets lost onto the ground and all goes into a bale to be eaten, made into bedding and composted.

E) Chaff Carts. Just a box towed behind the combine which collects all the chaff and seeds. Tip up and burn/compost to kill viable seeds.

F) Cage Mills. Basically two heavy spinning mills obliterate all the seeds coming out in the chaff. Expensive but 99.9% success rate!

Of course, all these have their limitations...
IMG_8579.JPG


The key is getting the weeds into the machine. Big plus point for stripper headers as they can run close to the ground, pick up all visible seeds and still leave the crop residue behind. Some work done at CSU has shown an excellent fit for stripper headers in this space.

Things like wild oats that tend to shed before harvest are a bit of an issue. As with all weeds, you select for the populations that set seed earlier if HWSC is your only control.

There must be a good balance of measures. Current thinking is at least three of the Big 6 stacked is giving good control. Not to say more wouldn’t be better though!
 
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Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
Thanks for posting that @CornishTone

A few questions;

Do many growers test their water for pH, cations etc? I'm sure you've read the threads on hard water in TFF affecting glyphosate, dims, SUs, PDM etc.
1.5. l/ha (800g/ha) glyphosate isn't enough. I would only use a rate that low on pre harvest desiccation or 1-2 leaf volunteers. Would bolder rates help buy some more time? What does glyphosate cost vs paraquat? I agree that dropping back to one dose of more gly won't be enough by itself.
How do you get crop competition with wide row spacing on most seeders? Any comments on no till vs normal tillage?
Stacking pre em herbicides gets very expensive and cost per tonne will soon become prohibitive. The £100/ha+ stacks of high flufenacet, DFF, PDM, prosulfocarb, flurtamone, triallate not uncommon over here are diluted by yields of 8+ t/ha. Aussie dryland yields must make that hurt even more!
 

CornishTone

Member
BASIS
Location
Cornwall
Thanks for posting that @CornishTone

A few questions;

Do many growers test their water for pH, cations etc? I'm sure you've read the threads on hard water in TFF affecting glyphosate, dims, SUs, PDM etc.
1.5. l/ha (800g/ha) glyphosate isn't enough. I would only use a rate that low on pre harvest desiccation or 1-2 leaf volunteers. Would bolder rates help buy some more time? What does glyphosate cost vs paraquat? I agree that dropping back to one dose of more gly won't be enough by itself.
How do you get crop competition with wide row spacing on most seeders? Any comments on no till vs normal tillage?
Stacking pre em herbicides gets very expensive and cost per tonne will soon become prohibitive. The £100/ha+ stacks of high flufenacet, DFF, PDM, prosulfocarb, flurtamone, triallate not uncommon over here are diluted by yields of 8+ t/ha. Aussie dryland yields must make that hurt even more!

Yep, I thought the same about gly rates when I came out, but 1.5-2lt/ha is a pretty standard rate and yes water is tested and water conditioner is used where appropriate. Water rates are low as well, 60-80/ha is fairly normal. We try to push them to 100lt/ha for gly though. The thing is, gly is hardly ever used by itself. It’s almost always used with a spike of some sort, depending on the problem weeds, so this takes the pressure off a little.

Paraquat is a little dearer than gly and has it’s obvious limitations on broad leaves weeds, but is very effective on grasses if used correctly. Spray grazing is something I hadn’t come across before. Low rate of Paraquat at milky dough stage of an annual grass weed means no viable seed and the stock can graze it a few days later as standing hay. Perennial grasses then grow through.

Depends of your definition of wide spacing I guess. Here 15” is wide, 7” is pretty narrow! The work suggests the narrower the better for competition, so it becomes a compromise between water use efficiency and weed competition.

No-till is a given here. It’s almost 100%. Might be a few dinosaurs still cultivating but very few. Conventional tillage is just too much of a risk from wind and water erosion. Plus the recognition that we need to retain as much OM as possible on these ancient and hungry soils, leaves it as the only option. There are some in WA who are experimenting with rotational ploughing to bury some seeds and are getting some good results, but it’s bloody expensive and time consuming. I can’t see that happening much over here with other options available.

The expense of pre-em stacking is part of the reason for all these different methods have been developed. It’s getting to the point where $100/ha is being spent just on the bloody annual Ryegrass! That’s unsustainable!!!!

Wheat yields in or patch this year ranged from 0-5.5t/ha. Those who managed to get a crop harvested will do ok on the back of better than expected prices. Those who got 5.5t/ha and APW will be very popular with their bank manager!
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
yes - 7" is pretty narrow.
"standard" spacing here for winter cereals would be 333mm ( 3 to the metre ) to fit in with our 1m summer cropping configuration, although 15" is also fairly common ( especially for people running 30" or 75cm summer crop spacings )

the biggest issue we have with narrower rows are trash clearance of stubble ( we conserve as much residue / stubble as we can, it is vital to our dryland zero till systems, but does present some challenges ) & the massive increase in cost of more row units

a 12m frame on 333mm spacings has 36 row units ( at anything from say $1400 - $3000 + per row unit )
twice as many rows soon adds up $$$

having said that, I am keen to go narrower rows for weed competition, but logistically its hard.
about 15 yrs ago I bought a new tyne opener airseeder, specced it on 250mm spacings x 5 rows deep,because I wanted to go narrower ( My previous planter was 333mm over 3 rows ) but it still soon reached its trash limit in our stubbles & I ended up changing it over to 333mm spacings & it transformed the machines trash handling ability

next planter I bought was a 12m double disc on 250 mm spacings ( again - I was wanting to reduce row spacing but had to compromise on the cost a bit, so stayed with 250mm instead of even narrower ) but still trash handling issues. Tall standing stubble - it would go through anything, but if the stubble was laying down or at odd angles, it was a nightmare

currently running a single disc machine back on 333mm spacings & at the moment cant justify any further machinery expenditure. It will have to do.

In an ideal world, id like to plant winter cereals on narrower rows to outcompete weeds . . .

paradoxically, with chickpeas I like to plant them on wider or skip row configurations, to get more distance between the rows to encourage more airflow, thus a dryer micro environment & as such I have avoided using fungicides ( we rarely use fungicides in cereals, but chickpeas & faba beans are particularly susceptible to disease & are routinely / commonly sprayed with fungicides. PS - I hate using fungicides & try to avoid them if at all possible )

but then, row spacings are always a compromise between crop type, weed competition, moisture conservation, disease control, cultural / mechanical practices etc etc

for our summer crops, 1m rows are pretty common, although in moister higher yielding environments it is more likely 75 cm. Conversely, in dryer environments it may be 1m single skip, 1 m double skip, 60" rows or even out to 80" rows for dryland cotton in the more extreme environments

horses for courses
 
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CornishTone

Member
BASIS
Location
Cornwall
Just had a bit of a debrief with the boss after our conference last week. He’s fairly pessimistic on the weed resistance front and believes we are heading for a colossal cluster f**k in a few years time as there are still those who stubbornly refuse to adopt even simple IWM strategies like cutting hay and/or integrating livestock into their rotation.

Interesting times ahead methinks!
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
hmm, obviously not much interest in herbicide resistance or methods to avoid it . . .

that's something that happens "elsewhere" with their "lower standards", would never happen in the UK :whistle:

:banghead:
 

Sparrow

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
South Shropshire
Spring cropping! We have had a rye grass problem for a few years, 70% of our land is grass, new lays and permanent pasture main enterprise is a beef unit. Started growing SB again, works well so far spray in Autumn after discing perhaps twice if conditions allow leave over winter and spray Gly just before drilling even had some tack sheep gracing one bad field last autumn managed to disc on the 4th of Jan you can tell how dry it was on our clay soils, walked that same field last Friday seeds germinating well will leave as long as I can before spray and drill, We crimp most of the barley (and sell some)so we can get the crop of that bit earlier all straw is baled and used for bedding I am hopeful this is going to get on top of the problem.
 

Flat 10

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Fen Edge
hmm, obviously not much interest in herbicide resistance or methods to avoid it . . .

that's something that happens "elsewhere" with their "lower standards", would never happen in the UK :whistle:

:banghead:
Why be like that? It happens here all the time. I very much appreciated viewing @CornishTone s slides. I also don’t think there’s many ‘resistance deniers ‘ in the UK, according to Cornish ‘s boss you have more of a problem over there. I think actually much of this isn’t news to us and has been discussed in the press and on here for a decade or more,
 

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