Grass Weed Conference a must attend
Michael Hennessey, Head of Crops Knowledge Transfer, previews the upcoming Grass Weed Conference, detailing what to expect at next week’s event.
There appears to be almost no respite from the rain over the coming week and next week is not looking great. The window for planting narrows further, with an increasing amount of land not suitable for planting and will have to wait until next spring. There are details of the planting and seed rate adjustments needed in last week’s podcast, which is available here: https://share.transistor.fm/s/d8546d98
Grass weeds
Controlling grass weeds has become increasingly difficult on many farms, with blackgrass becoming more common. However, herbicide resistant grass weeds - such as wild oats, Italian ryegrass, blackgrass and some bromes - are becoming more difficult to control and are adding to these problems.
These herbicide resistant issues were to be expected at some stage on every farm as a result of the practices at farm level. Poor farm practice can hasten the resistance problems, while well planned agronomy practice can delay resistance development. Where resistance issues are a problem, managing these populations is a challenge and needs every tool the farmer can deploy on the farm.
Next week is a great opportunity to catch up with the latest research on grass weeds and farmer practice controlling these weeds taking into account plough and non-plough based crop establishment systems.
Teagasc and the Enable Conservation Tillage (ECT) partners are holding a Grass Weed Conference in the Killashee Hotel, Naas, Co. Kildare, next Wednesday, November 8th at 10.30am
This Grass Weed Conference is a must for all farmers who have grass weeds on their farm, or farmers who are worried about bringing these weeds onto the farm through machinery or organic manures.
The grass weed issues presents a serious threat for the industry, as any further spread of these problematic weeds will make many farms unviable. We encourage all agronomists and industry representatives to attend to ensure their future interactions with tillage farmers are up to date and can convey the seriousness of the problems.
On the day, we will hear from the ECT project team about the results from the project, including: the prevalence of the main weeds; some of the driving factors around establishment system and weed control on farms; the resistance status of weed populations; and much more. The conference will hear from farmers working with the project who are managing different establishment systems with different weed problems including blackgrass, resistant Italian rye-grass and resistant wild oats.
Conference attendees will get a chance to attend workshops to identify grass weeds, talk to industry experts and chat to the ECT farms about their experiences.