Posted April 12, 2024 | By: Nutrien Ag Solutions

Crop Consultant Kelsey McGee from Paris, MO, discusses the importance of early season weed control.

Episode Transcript:

Farm Progress broadcast presents this Week in Agribusiness Serving America's most essential industry brought to you by Case IH solutions for every challenge, equipment for every farm. Case IH, built by farmers. Hello, everyone, and welcome to This Week in Agribusiness. As spring moves along, planting progress is moving forward as well, which is a reminder, folks, there is a lot of big equipment out there on the roads this time of year.

 Be patient. If you get behind a big piece of equipment, give them a little bit of grace. That's an important person to somebody in their family. And we've got further proof of farmers getting underway. Curt Aarons, editor of Nebraska Farmer, sent us this image of Jason Libby, the farm manager at Husker Harvest Days, getting their corn in the ground and what a clean field he's planting into.

That's the topic of our next piece, Agronomy for your Acres with our friends from Nutrien Ag Solutions. Joining us now is Kelsey McGee. She's a Crop Consultant down in Missouri. And Kelsey, let's talk about the importance of planting into a clean field. Why is that something you're so adamant about? Yeah. So right now, I think we all know that conditions are pretty dry across the corn belt.

Here's this specifically in northeast Missouri. You know, we're in a drought. So I think about the three, three, one rule, you know, in three days, three inch weeds can take an inch moisture from the soil. You know, so obviously, we want to preserve as much moisture as we can so we can maximize our germination, you know, get it even stand, because we only do have one time to plant that crop and you want to do it right.

Absolutely, Kelsey. When we're thinking of those pre-emergence chemical applications, what are some products you'd recommend for this time of year? Yeah. So obviously we want to look at a multiple mode of action type product. Specifically, Nutrien has a product called Matador-S, which is three modes of action. It really helps limit our ability to help control these water problems that we're having because we are getting a lot of resistance against a lot of these chemistry groups and we're becoming very limited with these amount of tools that we have in our bucket.

 And with the residual, it's so important because all of these tools in our bucket are going to one day limit us to where we could go back to glyphosate resistance and we may not be able to control any of these problems weed. Kelsey, adjuvants let's talk about those. What can they or how can they change the efficacy of what you're applying?

Yeah, so we all know that not every day is a perfect day to spray. You know, the wind's not always blowing five miles an hour, you know, and the sun isn’t always shining, you know. So the leaf cuticles can change in certain weather conditions. So these adjuvants do help improve the performance, and they help modify your spray pattern and your droplet size and also helps to move these pesticides, too, through the plants.

You know, not all adjuvants are created equal. And so with that, Loveland has created a system called Leci-Tech through their adjuvant system. And it actually helps the adjuvant to get in the plant, on the plant and in the plant. Kelsey, before we let you go, soil temperatures. Did they impact the efficiency? Yeah. So there could be there could be at times, yes.

So early in the season when it's cool, obviously those residuals will last a lot longer. But as  time goes on and the soil temperatures do get warmer, you know, there's degradation that happens in the soil. So, you know, going back to the adjuvant piece, we do have a product within our Loveland Products line up called Infuse that I really recommend putting with these residuals to extend their life expectancy. Lots to look at this time of year for growers to keep those fields clean. That's Kelsey McGee, Crop Consultant with Nutrien Ag Solutions. And if you want to learn more, visit NutrienAgSolutions.ca