Ryegrass seed scandal

[GeorgeK]

An article in FW this week I could scarcely believe. A grower of Italian ryegrass for seed documenting his major issues with herbicide resistant ryegrass in the following cereal crops. Says it's getting worse than blackgrass due to to its ability to germinate any time of year, being more competitive and with high resistance to grassweed sprays.

I imagine plants are being selected for resistance because those not killed in the cereal crops survive and produce resistant seeds that grow in the next grass seed crop, and so the problem spreads.

And so what's being done about this godawful menace? Well they're harvesting the seed, bagging it up and shipping it across the country to unsuspecting farmers. That's right, the seed in bags we buy likely already has multiple herbicide resistance and will soon become the next blackgrass... only worse. And we're drilling it in our fields.

I always assumed breeders would have been selecting herbicide susceptible plants so this couldn't happen. What an incredible situation, is it just me or is this irresponsible madness?

 

[farmerm]

I have a couple of friends that having been whole cropping, burning off and hand roughing some patches of ryegrass that none of the grassweed herbicides will touch for several years now. I am not sure how keen I would be to put in a ryegrass lay in an arable rotation...!

 

[GeorgeK]

I have a couple of friends that having been whole cropping, burning off and hand roughing some patches of ryegrass that none of the grassweed herbicides will touch for several years now. I am not sure how keen I would be to put in a ryegrass lay in an arable rotation...!

It's got me worried about my grass leys (established to reduce blackgrass ), and some of my arable margins were established with ryegrass so it can seed right next to my cereals .

I knew it could become resistant, I never imagined the stuff in the bag already was!

 

[Macsky]

Roundup resistant ryegrass? I’d have some, see you later thistles/rushes/docs.......

Sounds pretty crazy right enough

 

[GeorgeK]

Roundup resistant ryegrass? I’d have some, see you later thistles/rushes/docs.......

Sounds pretty crazy right enough

Not roundup resistant... yet. But growing resistance to commonly used cereal herbicides so potentially a massive headache for arable with grass lays in the rotation

 

[Farmer Roy]

Roundup resistant perennial ryegrass has been a major problem in parts of Australia for something like 20 years or more
It’s an issue I’ve been warning about here ever since joining TFF, but no one seemed interested
PRG seems to be one of the worst species for this, it has become resistant to a number of different chemical groups & I believe in laboratory conditions they were able to breed it resistant to just about anything within 16 generations or so . . .

Vary tactics to beat resistant ryegrass

grdc.com.au

 

[B'o'B]

Roundup resistant perennial ryegrass has been a major problem in parts of Australia for something like 20 years or more
It’s an issue I’ve been warning about here ever since joining TFF, but no one seemed interested
PRG seems to be one of the worst species for this, it has become resistant to a number of different chemical groups & I believe in laboratory conditions they were able to breed it resistant to just about anything within 16 generations or so . . .

Vary tactics to beat resistant ryegrass

grdc.com.au

You talk about Perennial Rye Grass in your post, but the article you link to states Annual Rye Grass is the issue, is one worse than the other is Oz? I’ve been told it’s annual rye grass that has the bigger potential to be a problem weed For the UK.

 

[Bury the Trash]

Why would it worry a livestock or even a mixed farm ? Surely grass will last longer win win, unless you dont like prg

Might worry the grass seed sellers I guess all we would need to buy would a bit of complimentary wc ,

Oh yeah i remember now it's only a problem to them ' arable farmers'


Taxi....

 

[GeorgeK]

So blackgrass spreads across the country in contaminated seed and equipment, fair enough it's lapse biosecurity but it's never been intentional. But resistant ryegrass doesn't have to go to the effort of hitching a lift. It's being bagged up, loaded onto trucks and drilled all over the place.
In a few years when it's a massive problem we will probably look back and say "Ah yes, in hindsight that wasn't the smartest thing to be doing"

 

[DrWazzock]

I struggle to kill ryegrass leys without 5 litres per ha of round up and even then sometimes it just doesn’t seem to work very well. And to me this is a silly high rate to be using ahead of drilling of another crop and you have to wonder about collateral damage.
Ploughing the ley down seems to be quite effective though so I’m not worrying.
We have round up resistant annual nettles, cranesbill and black bindweed here from what I can see. Either that or they need stupidly high rates to kill them.
Question is do we really want to build a system that fits around glyphosate? Not really, so we are ploughing this autumn and only growing crops which don’t rely on knife edge chemistry. We aren’t taking a chance with blackgrass and chemistry that half works which is just the road to big problems IMO.

 

[Gong Farmer]

Not roundup resistant... yet. But growing resistance to commonly used cereal herbicides so potentially a massive headache for arable with grass lays in the rotation

Resistant to flufenacet? Or just the SUs/Acc-ase products?.

 

[GeorgeK]

Resistant to flufenacet? Or just the SUs/Acc-ase products?.

Black-grass and rye-grass show signs of growing resistance

Our grassweed resistance testing programme has identified cases of reduced sensitivity to flufenacet.

cropscience.bayer.co.uk

"Rye-grass is also showing a decline in flufenacet activity. Although as a weed it affects fewer farms than black-grass, research results are more concerning. Samples from some UK farms required over 300 g/ha flufenacet applied pre-emergence for 50% rye-grass control and over 3 kg/ha flufenacet for 90% control – in glasshouse trials.
These figures are well above the 240g/ha label rate so are classified as resistant."

I believe in practice most blackgrass herbicide programs will still effectively control ryegrass in the majority of cases. However resistant populations are emerging, and worse it seems merchants are happy to use these resistant plants for seed

 

[Renaultman]

Resistant Rye grass is by far the biggest worry for me. The battle is endless.

 

[Treg]

Plant breeding just gone to far?

 

[GeorgeK]

Plant breeding just gone to far?

Or the opposite, and the merchants don't give a monkey's what they're flogging. Surely ryegrass seed should only be grown on land certified free from resistant plants, and from seed also certified resistance free? That way they wouldn't be spreading the problem, just seems like common sense

 

[Treg]

Or the opposite, and the merchants don't give a monkey's what they're flogging. Surely ryegrass seed should only be grown on land certified free from resistant plants, and from seed also certified resistance free? That way they wouldn't be spreading the problem, just seems like common sense

Could be either way couldn't it? Really we need a plant breeder to explain what their breeding for, I wonder if their goals are the same as ours?

 

[B'o'B]

Could be either way couldn't it? Really we need a plant breeder to explain what their breeding for, I wonder if their goals are the same as ours?

Their goal is to sell to you and as many others as possible with as big a profit as possible.

 

[som farmer]

well, as a livestock farmer, it sounds ideal, just get r-up resistant clover, which it nearly is, and that will be fantastic !
On the other hand, any resistance, in any crop, unless deliberate, should cause concern, we should be able to buy, with confidence, of the product. As a student, can remember, days spent walking the grass seed crops, pulling anything that shouldn't be there ! I can also remember sowing PRG at home, with the latest, best mix, and finding a certification label in the bag, showing that variety, was 15 yrs old !
Again, as farmers, we are calling for, better, greater varieties of seed, and the breeders are producing/claiming, the new varieties. What is being lost, in doing that ? Varieties may well produce the goods, on ideal test plots, but in the hugely diverse range of soils/farms ? Modern ryegrasses, do not produce the amount of viable seed, they once did.
Resistance is appearing, not only in crops, but wormers, anti-biotics, and bugs, and is going to be one of the greatest problems, humans will face, in the future, lets hope, the breeders/scientists, are working on the problem !!!!!!!!
And, i totally agree, sellers don't give a damn, as long as it gets sold, probably working on the 'remedy', which they will eagerly sell us !!!!

 

[deleted user 837354]

The process of grass seed breeding and replication is strictly controlled, inspectors look for off types and will reject a field for it if they are present.

This has sod all to to with people selling grass seed if an issue did exist, it would be an issue with the inspection and certification of the seed crops.

The bulk of my arable crops were behind grass leys and I cannot recall a single issue with resistant ryegrass. If you are struggling to control it then you have a rotation issue I would suggest.

Also, if you can't kill grasses with anything less than 5L/ha roundup you need to look at the products you are using and how they are applied. I've seen full blown grass leys killed stone dead with a lot less than maximum label rate. 2L/ha would probably be enough but I bet the docks might survive.

 

[som farmer]

The process of grass seed breeding and replication is strictly controlled, inspectors look for off types and will reject a field for it if they are present.

This has sod all to to with people selling grass seed if an issue did exist, it would be an issue with the inspection and certification of the seed crops.

The bulk of my arable crops were behind grass leys and I cannot recall a single issue with resistant ryegrass. If you are struggling to control it then you have a rotation issue I would suggest.

Also, if you can't kill grasses with anything less than 5L/ha roundup you need to look at the products you are using and how they are applied. I've seen full blown grass leys killed stone dead with a lot less than maximum label rate. 2L/ha would probably be enough but I bet the docks might survive.

as with all good product, once the generic versions come out, never quite the same. Our last aussie agrominist, used to tell us 1 litre, for every year, a ley had been down, and 3 weeks before starting cultivations ! Ideal perhaps, but not always possible !