Yes !! Our experience is very limited; however, I'm convinced that cover crops can be used to control weedy cultivars in our crops, at least to a limited extent. We aren't expecting weed free crops, particularly, this early in the game.
This pic shows weed cultivars in wheel tracks left by a Case 2470 with single tires pulling a 26 foot wide Schulte mower.
This past fall we seeded winter wheat into a nine cultivar cover crop. At the time of seeding there were a few new broadleaf plants showing, but no grassy weed plants. Many of the cover crop species were still alive, but we expect that they will not survive the winter. Should they survive, an application of any phenoxy should tip them over. My real concern is whether grassy weeds will show this coming spring. This property has had two legume cultivar crops that allowed us to use more effective chemistry on grassy weed cultivars.
The pic is showing us seeding into a pretty good stand of cover crop with nine cultivars.(3 radish, 2 canola, 2 mustard, Wooly pod vetch, Crimson clover)
Great pics. When and where are you relying on a mower for your operation? The cover crop stand looks great as far as biomass, this was spring seeded and allowed to grow all season or terminated at what point? Also noticed that the other field in the background is up and going, what was the seeding date for you? With this wet fall and winter you would think that the cover crop will not be detrimental to the wheat at all as far as moisture goes.
ReplyDelete--hopefully we will not use the mower again. We can seed in any condition we are likely to be confronted with.
Delete--the cc was seeded in mid-late May.
--seeded cc in November to ww. Should have been seeded at least 2wks earlier.
--I think the lateness of seeding will have more impact on yield than moisture. What impact will that be ???
As always I find your experiments fascinating. Did you let the cc go all year or did you spray it out this summer? Very interested in your management of the cc. Did you spray it for grassy weeds or was it pretty clean from the previous legume crops?
Delete--we have not terminated the cc. What the winter doesn't take out will be dealt with this coming spring.
Delete--I found no (very few) grass cultivars growing where we planted the ww. We hope that condition continues come spring. We use crop rotation that allows the use of better grass herbicides than available with the raising of wheat and barley to improve grass weed control.
--The goal is to have a crop growing year around to compete out grassy weeds, -either cc or cash crop.
Looking forward to seeing how your grassy weed situation is when you come out the other side. Great information.
ReplyDeleteme too!
Delete