Robert Goodson: Due to the lateness of this year’s soybean crop, due to both a large number of weed acres as well as the wet spring that we experienced, many of our beans are still late and have the options of having the over-the-top application for Palmer pigweed control.
Which herbicide you would use in the field will depend on what technology is present. If you have Roundup Ready beans, you would end up using up to 24 ounces of fomesafen in the field. This is the herbicide Flexstar. If you have Liberty Link beans, the herbicide of choice will be Ignite. You can use up to 57 ounces, but the accepted application rate would be two 22 ounces instead of one big application. We seem to have better control with the two smaller applications overall.
But the key to the control of these weeds in these fields will be weed size. If we have a weed that is two-inches tall we usually get pretty control, but if we have a weed such as this that is six-inches tall we usually lose control with both systems. So it’s very important, whether using either the Roundup system or the liberty Link system, to control weeds when they’re extremely small, that way we have a whole lot more success in controlling this noxious weed.
Your Arkansas Soybean Podcast is a production of the University of Arkansas, Division of Agriculture, and was funded in part by the Arkansas Soybean Promotion Board. For more information on soybean farming in Arkansas contact your local county extension office.