Importance of a good chemical rotation and records

With tight commodity prices, growers are trying to find crops that will return the most to their operation. This sometimes becomes a nightmare because of what was applied the previous year’s crop. We need to be thinking further ahead than we ever had to in the past of what we are planting due to some of the chemistries we use for weed control having residual in them. If you have a Wheat, Barley and Canola rotation then we want to make sure that the year before the canola that we are not using any products that have residual. That seems simple enough but sometimes fields change. This could be the case for this spring in areas so you have to be aware of what was applied in that field. Once we get into the specialty crops like peas, lentils, beans and potatoes we need to go back at least 3 years to see what was sprayed. Keeping good records is the key to knowing what was applied to your fields and can make life so much easier. That was one of the reasons we created My Farm Manager through the DynAgra website. This is your online storage locker with all of your agronomy files in one place.

The other factor of a good chemical rotation is in regards to resistance management. I know it is very easy to use the same product across the farm because it comes in shuttles. There are more instances of group one wild oat resistance every year and in some areas we have group 2 and group 8 resistant wild oats. Wild oats are not the only thing that there is resistance. There is group 2 resistant kochia, chickweed and cleavers to name a few. So when looking at what to spray look out further than the rebate cheque the companies are offering and see what is going to be the best choice for your farm.

Those are my thoughts,

Garth Donald C.C.A