S9 E3 - Pasture Weed Management - War Against Weeds

Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:00):
Music.

Alyssa Essman (00:06):
Welcome back to the war against weeds podcast.
This is Alyssa Essman, WeedScience extension specialist at
Ohio State. Today, I'm joined bymy co host Sarah Lancaster from
K State. How are you Sarah?

Sarah Lancaster (00:17):
great!

Awesome. We've got two exciting guests today to
talk all about kind of adifferent cropping system than
something we normally have onthe podcast, which is pasture
systems. So we've brought on twofolks who is kind of in their
wheelhouse and can share some oftheir knowledge with us today.
So Kevin, we'll start with you.Do you want to tell us a little
bit about what you do and whereyou're at?

Kevin Bradley (00:40):
Yeah. Hi everybody. Kevin Bradley, I'm a
State Extension wheat scientistat the University of Missouri.
Been here a long time, and oneof the things that is in my
wheelhouse, as you say, or myresponsibilities, is certainly
pasture weedmanagement.

Thanks for being with us todayKevin. Dwight, you
want to tell us about what youget up to in Penn State?

Dwight Lingenfelter (01:06):
Sure. Yeah. So Dwight, Lingenfelter,
extension weed scientist, yeah.And like Kevin, we go back a
ways. I've been at Penn Statenow for about 30 years. So yeah,
pasture and forage weed controlis one of my areas that I cover,
along with, yeah, otheragronomic crops as well, and
some vegetable crops,

fantastic. So one of, one of the first things
we're interested in learningabout pasture system, because
this is one of the areas thatdoes differ a little bit from
our row crops, which kind ofobviously influences how we
manage weeds in these systems.But you know, what are those
major weeds in the pasturesystems, maybe, kind of in your
different respective areas of ofyour states. And you know, what

(01:50):
are their life cycles and someof their characteristics?

Yeah, I can start, you know, one thing
that's fescue is the primaryforage species that we're
talking about, Dwight has more,maybe some orchard grass and
things like that, than maybe Ido, but I'm about as far west as
you're going to see in thefescue belt, really, when you

(02:13):
get over to Sarah, it startstransitioning. But in this state
of Missouri, we're all fescue,and so the weeds are different
in different types of forages.You know, we don't if you go
south of here, you start gettinginto Bermuda grass and stuff.
And go to Florida, for example,and there's all kinds of weird
C4 things that we don't reallyhave a problem with. So I just

(02:37):
want to set that stage. Buthaving said all of that, we've
done a survey years ago, and Idon't really think it's any
different now, to be honest. Butwhen we did that, we just
surveyed a bunch of Missouripastures, and our top weeds
were, you know, horse nettle. Iremember that being number one.
You know, just as far as youwalk into a Missouri pasture,

(03:01):
there's a 90, 98% chance you'regoing to find a horse nettle,
ragweed, cocklebur musk and bullthistle. Those are all very,
very common. And then you know,you could start breaking down
and getting into some more brushtype, species, multiple rows and

(03:26):
blackberries and things likethat. And then you know whether
a person categorizes it as aweed or not. Then you can start
thinking about like later in theseason, we start seeing grasses,
and a lot of forage producersand a lot of Missouri cattlemen
don't even consider a foxtail aweed or whatever. But, you know,

(03:48):
yellow foxtail and crabgrass,those are all so I'd say all
those together, some of the onesthat kind of came up to be some
of the highest, and I think thatwould be pretty common, or in
most of tall fescue situations,

yeah, yeah. And as far as Yeah, kind of the
Northeast here, yeah, we don'thave as much tall fescue. I
mean, there are some some tallfescue pastures, but yeah, most
are going to be orchard grass,or combinations of of, you know,
Kentucky Bluegrass or perennialrye, smooth Brome, you know,
smooth brome grass, you know,systems like that. And then, and

(04:23):
then, you know, a lot of timesthere'll be some kind of a
legume in it as well. You know,most cases is some kind of a
white clover. And, you know, andunfortunately, you know, a lot
of that is not even necessarily,they there wasn't actually, you
know, necessarily establishedthere. There just kind of be
some wild type. And I knowthat's something that I know
Kevin and I, we've talked aboutover the years, is that, you
know, they, they're so, youknow, so possessive of that

(04:45):
white clover, even though theynever even seeded it. But, but
anyway, that that's, that's, youknow, we can discuss that later.
But as far as we leads the weedsthat we're dealing with, yeah, a
lot of those ones that Kevinmentioned, you know, another one
I get asked a lot about it ismilkweed, you know, very, you
know. Common milk weeds, a verycontroversial weed, you know,
especially with the monarchbutterfly and so forth. But, you

(05:05):
know, it has some toxicproperties and and so forth that
can, you know, cause some issuesin pastures and in livestock.
Livestock production. Anotherone that we probably have,
especially in our area and inmore than the northern kind of
cooler temps, is a smooth bedstraw. I get a lot of questions
about smooth bed straws and avery aggressive perennial weed

(05:26):
that can easily take overdifferent types of butter cups.
Or another one that we get a lotof questions about, yeah, the
the annual grasses, as Kevinmentioned, you know, large crab
grass and and Fox tails. Anotherone that we really deal with in
our area is Japanese stiltgrass. It's one that we have a
lot of issues with it becauseit's so prevalent in our wooded

(05:48):
areas, and it starts to creepout into the pastures right
there, along the wood woodedareas, and it comes out into the
pasture setting. And thenanother one that I get a lot of
questions about is a perennialcalled rough stock bluegrass,
typically in turf settings. Butthat is, is a serious problem.
And and, you know, our foragesystems, but also our small

(06:08):
grain systems as well. So that'sthat was just kind of, you know,
kind of a quick and dirtyoverview. I mean, there's
obviously others, but those arethe main ones that I get
questions about.

How often do you guys get questions about
Sericea Lespedeza Kevin, I havea feeling you probably get some
Dwight, no?

21 years ago, I came here in Sericea Lespedeza
was down in Springfield insouthwest Missouri area, and
I've watched it completelyencompass The whole state in my
21 years. It's, I get quite afew questions every year. It's
on the roadsides, it's inpastures. So it has, it has

(06:51):
literally been one of watchspread,

yeah, we don't, I mean, we have it. I
mean, there's, there's certainpockets that have it. But it's
not a major, a major contender,as far as our weeds that we have
here in the Northeast.

So Kevin, when you were describing some of your
weeds, you said something thatkind of caught my attention. You
know, not all growers considerall of these to be weeds. So I
guess, what are some of thosesituations where you, you know,
what's the threshold of where wedo treat versus when we don't?
Probably depends on the speciesand and kind of the end use of
that pasture. But could you walkus through some of that?

Well that's the million dollar question. And I
thought my research program wasgoing to tackle that very
question years ago, and we neverreally have. And I was actually
there was a time in my lifewhere I was headed towards
trying to find thresholds in apasture, and I guess I just kind
of gave up on it. But the way Itry to approach it is Dwight's

(07:51):
already mentioned one of thesethings. So I, when I go talk to
producers, you know, becausethey do all view weeds
differently, and so likepoisonous weeds, that that's a
category most people say, Well,yeah, I'm going to control
those. And then there's anothercategory that put things into,
like weeds that are spiny orvery unpalatable, and the cattle

(08:19):
are way less likely to eat them.And again, that's that's a
category where some people wouldstart to differ and disagree on
what's what there. But I thinkmost people would recognize
that, you know, when you see athistle rosette or something,
the reason that the the grass isall still in there, is not
touched is because, if they havea choice, they're they're going

(08:42):
to try to stay away from that.But then everything else is what
you're asking about. You know,you know, we've shown on paper,
ragweed from a forageperspective, at the vegetative
stage, is got some goodcharacteristics. So do so do
some of the foxtails and butthat's kind of all on paper. And

(09:02):
whether you can get the animalto eat it or not, if they have
other choices, is a whole notherthing. And that starts to talk
about whether you havemanagement intensive grazing or,
you know, most mostly, we havesome of that, but mostly in
Missouri, you know, it's justkind of free graze across broad
acreages, and we're not pushingthe animals into a small,
confined area to make them eateverything. I mean, there's

(09:24):
exceptions to that, but so thatlast category of you know, what
is a weed is highly debated.Some people are very passionate
about that, like, like Dwightjust said, milkweed. You want to
get some people passionate,start talking about that. So,

(09:45):
yeah, we, I'm not aware ofanybody. Dwight might have a
better answer, but you knowthis, this thing about
thresholds, it doesn't exist, asfar as I know, and it's just
what. Are your weed problems?How much are they taking over
your acreage? What are youwilling to do about it? The

(10:05):
forage are they? Excuse me, thelegume thing that Dwight
mentioned is 100% true. Youknow, they don't want to kill
their clovers, and that often isa decision maker. So there's
just it's a complex environment,for sure.

Yeah, I agree with what Kevin just said.
You know, as far as just, justhaving this, this, everybody
kind of has their own agenda. Asfar as what, what, what they
consider a good and healthypasture, and, you know, versus a
weedy pasture. And, you know,what's a weed and what's not so?
So, yeah, I think, I think itjust a lot of it just boils down
to, you know, you can tell whothe good managers are and who

(10:43):
they aren't, you know,especially, you know, the
biggest thing you know, when wethink about, you know, pasture
systems is just how they grazeit. And the biggest thing is,
is, you know, overgrazing isprobably one of the number one
problems. Why we have weed weedissues in pastures is because of
just over grazing. And, and, youknow, and, I guess, you know,
you know, we're talking about,you know, beef systems, or

(11:06):
cattle systems, versus, versushorses. You know, obviously a
horse is going to, you know,chew, chew it down right to the,
you know, right to the groundlevel with her teeth, you know,
whereas, where's a, you know, acattle, and cows are not going
to do that. And then you, ofcourse, you have, then goats and
sheep and so all those are alldifferent. You know, way, way
things are managed. So, so itkind of depends on what, what

(11:28):
you know, who you're talking to,and what their system is, and
whether they're doing intensivegrazing or rotational grazing or
just kind of free, free for all.Sarah,

it looked like you had a question there.

Well, so we're talking about pastures, but I
usually lump like hay meadows orhay fields into this kind of
conversation, too. And I just, Ithink I'm probably skipping
ahead a little bit in terms ofthe questions that you had
thought of ahead of time,Alyssa, but one of the things
we're seeing here is a lot ofour smooth, brown grass stands
are really declining, and one ofthe theories is that it has to

(12:00):
do with cutting height. And sowhen you talked about the
differences in grazing heightsbetween cattle and horses, it
just made me think about, Idon't know if you guys see that
or have done any work on onmowing height or cutting height
for Hey, meadows. Have anythoughts on that?

I have not, but it's in the literature. I think
it's pretty well established,you know, and there's been some
great even some grazing heightcomparisons. And what Dwight
says absolutely true. We nub itoff to the ground, we're going
to see weeds come back in therethat much thicker and and, you
know, opens up that canopy, ifyou will, for germination of a

(12:38):
lot of weed. And the same istrue for whether it's alfalfa
cutting height, or smooth broomor whatever, that that that kind
of relationship is out there inthe in the scientific
literature, for sure,

yeah, and, and as far as you know, there's
other factors too, you know. Imean, we've noticed, as far as
our declining stands and some ofour orchard grass, you know,
it's due to insects, you know,things like Bill bugs, even some
of these leaf diseases and theones that have Timothy, we have
things like the Timothy mite. Sothere are other reasons why we
have declining stands as well,you know, over the years. So, so

(13:16):
it's, you know, not only thejust the, you know, rotational
management or the grazingmanagement, but just other,
other, you know, managementfactors as well, you know,
agronomics and so forth. Andinfertility is a big thing too.
I think a lot of, lot of times,just fertility is always a big
just the agronomics, you know,is not, is always overlooked.
You know, you think, you know,pastures are great, great source

(13:37):
of feed, but yet they seem to bethe one that's most, you know,
kind of, kind of abused in termsof, you know, just management
issues in general.

So kind of leading off this conversation,
what are some of the we'vementioned, several of them, but
just thinking through thecultural control practices we
have available in our pasturesystems,

well, do I just said the main one that I try to
hit on is, certainly I'm notfertility expert, but it is the
number one reason why I think weare more likely to have a weedy
pasture than than not. And wedid some research years ago that
bear that out just soil pH,phosphorus, level, potassium

(14:22):
level, all of those things aregoing to play a huge role in
how, how healthy your forage is,and therefore how, how many
weeds you have, and and so therein our world, pastures in I'll
just say my state. I won't blameanybody else's state. But I'm

(14:44):
not trying to get on youMissouri farmers, if you're
listening. But you all know thisalready, pasture fertility is
where we just say, kind of, oh,well, I'm going to do the best I
can. I can't afford to do that,or whatever it's it's abused. I
mean, we're not going to. Treatour corn and soybean fields the
way we treat our pastures. Andyou know, some of that's

(15:04):
economics and all that, but theresult of that general abuse of
fertility in pastures is, Ithink, weedier environment and
and like I said, we've shownthat when our that survey was
talking about when we went backand correlate, we took soil
samples, and, you know, this waslike 70 some pastures all around

(15:27):
the state over two years, and wetook soil samples, and we were
able to go back and correlate,you know, the lower fertility
level pastures with the higherweed density pastures. So it's
not a rocket science, but it didcorrelate and, and that's just
kind of the way it works. So,yeah,

and in addition to that, you know, the
fertility, it's just, you just,you know, selecting the right
species to begin with. You know,I think there's a lot of lot of
times these, these, you know,different farmers and so forth.
Get, get enamored by a certain,you know, certain type of
species. Maybe, you know a, youknow, seed, seed company has
that, you know, they're pushingit, but that a lot of times,
that may be something that canbe grown in the south, you know,

(16:10):
but yet you try to bring it herethe Northeast or upper Midwest
or something, and it's not goingto grow so, so you have to be
aware of what you know, what's,what's competitive species, and
then the mixtures, you know, ifyou're mixing with the legume,
you know how that's going towork as well. So So again, that
just kind of falls right inthere, just with agronomics and
then, and then time of yearplanting, you know, is, you
know, just, you know,understanding your weed spectrum

(16:31):
that you know whether you'retrying to establish in the fall,
where you're dealing with abunch of winter, potentially
winter annual weeds, or you'retrying to establish it in the
spring, you know, where thenyou're dealing with summer
annual so, so again, you justunderstanding your your your
systems, and you know, knowingwhat the rotations are, and you
know the types of weeds thatyou're dealing with. You know,
especially if you're trying tohave have a lot of perennial

(16:53):
weeds, and you're trying toestablish a perennial crop into
it, that's that's going to be asetup, setting yourself up for
failure. So just, you know,making sure you start with a
good clean, clean seed beds tobegin with. And

it sounds like that's kind of actually the
first step right is making suresome of these basic agronomics
are in place before we get tosome of the bigger weed control
questions. And so if we're in asituation where we have weeds
and we're trying to, you know,control them with one of our
chemical options. What are thereally important considerations

(17:26):
in those instances, thinkingtiming of application, product,
selection, things along thoselines?

Well, for us, I'll just go first everything we
just said. You know, one of thebiggest, most common questions
is, should I fertilize or sprayfirst or try to get myself back
under control? And and that'sone of those things that's very,
very hard, unless you see thefield yourself and try to figure
it all out. But I'll just leavethat there, because that's kind

(17:54):
of a very almost like situationto situation. And, you know, but
that's that is one thing tothink about whether you're
fertilizing the weeds. In mostcases, I'm just going to say,
most time, I'm going to say, getrid of the weeds first and try
to go with fertility later. Butthere's people that disagree
with me on that, and I'm notgoing to dispute that, but

(18:16):
that's a tough one. Secondly,for us with fescue. What I try
to remind people is metsulfuroncontaining herbicides. I want to
get too much into the detailshere, but those, those can stunt
and significantly impact yourforage yield if they're sprayed

(18:39):
in the spring. And in some waysit we've everybody's looked at
this that are fescue people, andyou know, if you do it just
right, you can reduce fescueseed heads and therefore reduce
fescue toxicosis. But on theother hand, you're going to get

(18:59):
some stunting and yield loss. Sojust want to you know that's
been kind of marketed andadvertised, and it can be used,
but it also can. I've alsogotten calls from farmers that
are like, what looks like Isprayed roundup like I didn't. I
didn't know this was going tohappen, and so they're kind of
upset about it. So that'sanother consideration. Think the

(19:21):
third consideration is, whatwe've already mentioned is, how
many, or what percentage islegumes, and you are going to
kill your legumes. And in mostcases, although I'm sure we'll
talk about this today, there is,there are some new options that
maybe, maybe you won't killwhite clover. And that's, that's

(19:42):
kind of brand new. And then, ofcourse, cost, you know, like of
the herbicide you're choosing isthese are very tight financial
systems to make it all work out.And so those are just some
things I think of off top myhead, but, and I. And then, of
course, okay, so now, what isyour weed you're targeting? What

(20:03):
is, you know, we never have justone weed out there. So, you
know, what's your worst weedyou're trying to get rid of in
and, you know, trying to targetthat timing, and that, you know,
because that that's a big dealtoo, is, you know, timing for
one thing might be this, and atiming for an annual weed might

(20:23):
be this, and, you know, so allthose things are stuff I think
about before you ever spray,

yeah. I mean, that's, that's right. I
mean, as far as it kind of goesback to, you know, know, your
enemy, you know. And I alwaystell, tell people to, you know,
there's so many times I get a,get a call, will say, Well, how,
you know, what should I spray inmy pasture? And first, first
question is, well, okay, well,what are we dealing with, you
know? So you have to, you know,have have a good, you know, weed
ID book, and we can talk aboutthose later, as far as

(20:51):
resources, but, you know, or ifyou don't know it, then, you
know, send, send me a picture,or send, send a picture to, you
know, one of the county agentsor whatnot, so that we can get a
positive ID, if I to determinewhat, what the life cycle is,
you know, we dealing with anannual, are we dealing with
perennials or something inbetween, and and they just had,
just understanding that first ofall, and then, and then, yeah,
is, once you figure that out,then there's situations where,

(21:15):
you know, we may need to startearly, you know, in terms of,
you know, some of these grasses,These annual grasses. You know,
they start to germinate alreadyin March, you know, or late
March, and depending on whereyou're in the country, but
making sure they're herbicide.If you're putting a residual
like something like a prowl H2Oor a satellite hydrocap on the
on there, it needs to be onthere before the weeds even

(21:36):
germinate, otherwise you'regoing to miss it. So, so that's,
that's just, just trying to getthat, you know, that concept,
you know, figured out to knowwhat, what goes on first, and
then from there, then, yeah,deciding, you know how it's
going to, you know, mesh up withyour, your mowing regimes, if
you do mow a couple times or so.And then also, you know, just
the way the paddock is, ismanaged, in terms of, you know,

(21:59):
root grazing and so forth. Soall those things have to come
into play. And it's, it's, it'seasier said than done. A lot of
cases.

One of the frustrations is typically the
lack of options in pasture,maybe relative to some of our
row crops, but especially inthose situations where we have
mixed stands of things that youknow, we're trying to preserve,
which, Kevin, you mentioned, anewer product. You want to tell
us a little bit about thatproduct and what it provides.

Well, it's, it's been anticipated for quite a
number of years now. I don'teven know how many we got told
over and over it was coming eachyear. And I guess I'll just say
in Missouri, it's, it's, it'shere, Dwight, I don't all you.
Or is it in your state? Yeah, wehave as well. Okay, so NovaGraz

(22:49):
is product from corteva, the thefirst herbicide that I know of
that you can selectively removecertain weeds and not kill your
white clover or annuallespedeza, if you happen to have
any of that. But for us, thewhite clover is, is the big

(23:13):
common thing that that we wouldhave out there. And you know, so
there's been a lot of weedscientists looking at it for
several years, and it has somesome good things. And they get
just, I just try to caution mygrowers, there's, there's no, we
talk about this all the times,no silver bullet or say this

(23:34):
100% is nothing that ever comesout of my mouth, usually. And so
there's some weaknesses too, youknow, like horse nettle, for
example, is, is a weakness ofit. But you know, if we would go
down through all kinds ofdifferent pasture herbicides, we
would, we would say weaknessesof other things and strengths
and but for example, you know,ragweed and things like that,

(23:56):
it's very good. So I just, youknow, don't want the marketers
to get ahead of us too much, butit is, it is a new product that
there's a lot of attention and alot of, I guess, excitement
about among some people, justbecause, hey, I can actually go
spray something without killingmy, my white clover.

Yeah. And another, another benefit to the
product is the fact that justthe residuals and so forth, in
terms of, you know, the thehaying and the hay and the
manure and so forth, you know, Imean, that's, that's one thing I
know, at least here inPennsylvania, because a lot of
our, you know, our pastures arenot only a pasture, but they're
also hayed every once in a whileand and so I rarely recommend an

(24:40):
aminopyroid product, like grazeon next or dura core only
because, it just because theresidues right there in the
manure, or they're, they'reespecially in the hay and, and
whereas, with a product likethis Nova graze, it's not in
there, you know, those residuesare not, not a factor. And then
the rotational restrictions, interms of, or, I should say, the,
you know, the the Restrict. Ofhaving the animals out of the

(25:01):
field. You know, if they'relactating dairy, for example,
you only need to be out forthree days, whereas other other,
if they're non lactating,there's no, no restriction. So
things like that are, are verybeneficial with this, but, but
unfortunately, as Kevinmentioned, there are some, some,
you know, weaknesses to this.And it's those problems we
talked about, things like horsenettle and Canada thistle and

(25:22):
and milkweed and dog Bane and,you know, in smooth bit smooth
bed straw. These are all, youknow, weeds that we're hoping
that this would would, you know,have a little bit better
activity on it. Unfortunately,it doesn't. So then we're kind
of stuck with kind of the old,old school ones, you know, going
back with high rates of2,4-DDicamba or or use of
crossbow or Triclopyr basedproducts, or kind of what we

(25:44):
typically use, you know, tocontrol those, or at least get
them, at least suppressed enoughto, you know, get a get a crop
for that season.

So going back to some of the non chemical
alternatives, right? We've kindof talked new products, some of
the limitations of the kind ofcommon products. Dwight, you
said mowing a while ago. What doyou think about mowing as a weed
management tool, a weed seedmanagement tool? And then,
Kevin, I think I saw a posterout of your group this winter

(26:15):
looking at some other nonchemical stuff. So I don't know
if you guys want to tackle that,those ideas,

yeah, so, so, yeah. I mean, rarely do I
recommend only spraying. I meanto me, you have to mow and and
the combination. I mean, youthink about, you know, chemical,
chemical aspects of weedcontrol, and they are, in most
cases, the backbone of our weedmanagement systems. But you also
have to supplement them withother other aspects, whether it

(26:43):
be the cultural, things wetalked about, the agronomics,
but then also things like themechanical like mowing and and I
never recommend, you know, justspraying alone, because, you
know, you think about especiallyperennials, understanding the
life cycle. You know, a lot oftimes the best time to spray a
perennial is in the late season,you know, late, late summer,
early fall, as that is thatplant is getting ready to go

(27:05):
dormant. Lot of those sugars arebeing shuttled down into the
root system. So if you can sprayit to that point, then the
herbicides are taken down withwith the sugars into the roots
for a much better kill the rootsystem, because it's all about
controlling the root with aperennial. Now with an annual.
Yes, you can definitely, youknow, help, help from a seed,
seed, you know, seed setstandpoint to, yeah, if you can

(27:26):
clip those off, off, you know,during the season a couple times
to stop seed production, thatwould be the target with that,
but, but especially with withannual or perennials, you always
want to have at least a, youknow, Two or three faceted
approach,

yeah. So couldn't agree more. And that, I guess
what you were talking to,referring to Sarah, is, you
know, we, we had looked at weedelectrocution and crops years
ago, and kind of had theimplement still sitting there.
And I've always thoughtelectrocution and forges might

(28:03):
be something that goes hand inhand, because at least the the
one we have, it's basically justa bar out front that anything
that the bar touches getselectrocuted. And so if you, if
you think about like the oldweed wipers, it's kind of the
same thing, except you're notusing chemical. And so anytime
you have a height differentialbetween the weed and the crop,

(28:27):
you know it should work. And inJuly and August, in most fescue
type environments, the fescue isin what we call the summer
slump, and we often start to geta height differential between
weeds and and the fescue. So thelong story short is we, we've

(28:48):
done the student is supposed tograduate in May, and we've done
two years of work. And soelectrocution, you know, I know
it's not for everybody, nobody,not everybody has these
implements, but if you want tothink about something different,
so we have found that, like, youknow, ragweeds and certainly

(29:13):
Cocklebur, believe it or not,iron weed things that get, you
know, have a good, strongcentral stem and and that you
can contact with the device,bull thistle, just trying to
think through some of the onesthat we saw, a little bit
stronger activity on those,those that I mentioned would

(29:36):
definitely fall into thatcategory. I'm probably missing
some, but they all did reallywell, like electrocution was as
good as the chemical treatmentthat we sprayed. On the other
hand, we've we've also learnedthat things like brush and
multiple rows or honey locust isnot going to be killed by

(29:59):
electrocution. And you'reprobably going to break your
boon trying to do it so, so it'sjust something to look at. The
limitation, of course, is if youdo not have a height
differential and you're notgetting, I mean, let me just go
back to some of the annualweeds. Like, you know, as long

(30:19):
as all the ragweeds are rampingpretty high, and you got a good
height differential between thatand the fescue. It will work.
But that doesn't always occur.There's sometimes where ragweeds
Two or three inches and 12 or 14inches, and you're not going to
get those little ones, at leastwhen you go through there and
say you'd have to go back andall of that. But so on annual

(30:42):
broadleaf weeds, it's reallygood. It's probably never going
to be a solution for annualgrass weeds. It's, unfortunately
not a solution for Johnsongrass. We've tried so, you know,
everything's got its fit. Butwith the, maybe the I hear more
interest about organic beefproduction and things like that.

(31:04):
So, so maybe it has a fit there.So it is another thing to think
about.

One more take on that he was talking
about. Kevin was talking aboutthe electrocution. But I think
while, while we're kind oftalking about different ways of
application, and I know, Ithink, Kevin, I think you did
some work on just like broadcastapplications versus these wiper
sponge applications. And I knowI haven't done anything
recently, but I know I thinkyou've done some, and I know JD

(31:33):
green at Kentucky has done some,and you know, in most cases, and
correct me if I'm wrong, butstill, you know, just using a,
you know, spraying, it tends tobe a little bit better than than
the wiping. I don't know, Kevin,do you ever want to, want to say
some additional comments aboutthat? Yeah,

yeah, for sure, broadcast spray. And I don't
know about you, Dwight, but we,I don't have a ton of problem
with Johnson grass, but it's, Ithink it's kind of coming back,
but get more questions about it,but I will just say this, so for
broadleaf weeds and just abouteverything else, broadcast is is

(32:10):
better than wiping. But we did astudy just on Johnson grass, and
we don't have very many goodbroadcast herbicide options for
Johnson grass, so we werecomparing it to plateau and
Outrider and things that hardlyanybody in my world uses. And
the problem, you know, when youget to a rate that actually
broadcast affects Johnson grass,you pretty much have almost

(32:35):
killed the fescue to the samedegree. So I say all of that
just to say the best treatmentfor us on Johnson grass was
wiping glyphosate compared toanything else that we could come
up with. And that's still not100% or anything like that, but,
but on broadleaf weeds, yeah,better to broadcast spray by

(32:59):
far.

So what about spot spraying? I mean, it's,
yeah, not forecast, but sure.What are your thoughts on that?
If

growers, you know, of course, pastures that
we go into for Johnson grassstudy, it looks like a
johnsongrass pasture, so, but ifthat ideally, Sarah, you're
exactly right. Ideally, it's,it's, you can go out there and
spot spray a plump here andthere. And I, I'm all for it,
yeah? I think that's the bestroute to go,

yeah. And that's, that's one thing that,
you know, I recommend, too,every once in a while, is spot
spraying. But you just remember,if you're using glyphosate, you
can't spray more than 10% ofyour pasture area, field area.
So that just kind of a warning,just like Kevin says, yeah, a
lot of times you go out thereand you're kind of too late, you
know, you should have been doingthis, you know, five years ago
or more, when there's just aclump here and there, not, not

(33:53):
when it's, you know, over threequarters of your, your, you
know, fields, your pastures. So,So timing is everything with
these, these different options.

So I love that Johnson grass came up here,
because it kind of leads to mynext question here, something we
get questions about, and it'snot always clear what the case
is, is, you know, for herbicideresistance in weeds like Johnson
grass. So I'm curious, are therespecies you're watching for
resistance, or any specific, youknow, species by side of action

(34:22):
combinations that are concerningin pasture systems.

I mean, yes, great question. I mean
generally. So I think, if I'mnot mistaken, our first
herbicide resistant weed everwas kind of in pasture situation
back in y'all should know thisbetter than me. I'm too old
carrot in two four days, orwhatever it was. Yeah, I think
so. But might have been aroadside, might have been

(34:46):
pasture, I'm not sure. Butanyway, I don't have a whole lot
of problems or questions orcomplaints about herbicide
resistance in pastures.Personally, I. Think that's
probably just because we tend tospray mixes and not just one
thing, and we don't spray everyyear by far, but that's just my

(35:09):
opinion. But having said all ofthat, any of the anything in the
amaranthus genius genus isalways going to be a concern for
me, and we do have some water,hemp occasionally in pastures,
not very common. Some Palmers,probably a little bit more
common. And, of course, spinypigweed. And so there, you know,

(35:34):
have a tendency to getresistance. I've often thought I
never did it, but I oftenthought of doing some kind of
project where just we wouldcollect pig weeds out of
pastures and their seed anddetermine if resistance had been
transferred to them in a settingwhere they didn't even have the
selection pressure. For example,glyphosate resistance can be

(35:56):
transferred through the pollenand all kinds of other
resistance to group two,resistance and things like that,
which are so common in ourcropping worlds, I would, I
wouldn't be surprised at all ifwe were to do that survey and
and find resistance in ourpastures when the herbicides
never been sprayed before. But Ijust never have done it, and

(36:18):
don't have the resources andtime. But so that's that's for
me. Dwight might have some moreherbicide resistance concerns,
but I don't get a lot ofconcerns.

yeah likewise. I mean, it's one of
those where, you know, themajority of our weeds, or at
least in in a pasture setting ornot, are not resistant that we
know of. You know, probably theproducts that we're using are
taking them out, but, but, yeah,any then that's, you know, the
fact that we're using multiplemeans of control, you know,

(36:49):
especially with mowing and soforth, that would definitely
help. You know, in some cases,with with some of these species,
I realized that, you know, youknow, they can still grow below
the, you know, the mowing, mowerdeck heights, and so forth, and
that that's always a situationthat you have to be concerned
about. But for the most part,yeah, I'm not getting getting,
you know, too much concerns yetwith with resistant species.

(37:10):
It's just, you know, trying tocontrol the species that are
there on these perennials and soforth that are the most, most,
uh, asked about questions.

So I have another kind of abstract question that's
popped up here. And some of thequestions you get for pasture
systems, I feel like, are justso different and nuanced than
maybe some of the row cropquestions we get, like, Dwight,
you mentioned, you know, residueand manure, and can I sell that
or put that on my garden, or Iwant to put that on my pasture.

(37:41):
We have questions, you know, Ihave this horse nettle or some
poisonous weed that I've it's inmy hay, but maybe the horses
don't eat it. Do I feed it? Sohow do you kind of work through
some of these questions when thestakes seem to be a little
different, you know, when we'redealing with animals or human
health or things like that?

Yeah that's good question. I mean, and you
know, a lot of it has to dowith, so, so, you know, whether
it's in a pasture or it'sactually in hay. So, so, I mean,
if the pasture is so pollutedwith, with, you know, horse
nettle or other other,potentially, you know, poisonous
types of weeds, then then, morethan likely, especially if

(38:21):
under, under drought conditionsand so forth, the animal is
going to get so hungry, orthey're going to just start to
nibble and graze on thosethings, or browse on those
weeds, you know, either out ofnecessity, because they need
something in their in theirsystem to feed upon, or they
just out of boredom, becausethey need, they need, you know,
just to buy their time now, now,if there's, if you just have a,

(38:44):
you know, a, you know, errant,you know, poisonous plant here
or there in the pasture, they'regoing to leave that alone.
They're not going to go and messaround with that, you know. And
then same thing with hay. Imean, if your hay is just this
full of poisonous plants, thenyou know, they're going to have
no, choice but to eat that. Butif there's some other desirable
feed or forage around, then,then they'll, they'll, you know,

(39:07):
usually, you know, spend theirtime, you know, going after the
desirable stuff and only eat,you know, the poisonous, and
consume the poisonous, you know,leaves and stalks and so forth,
kind of out of desperation. So Ithink it kind of goes back to
what we said before managementand and, you know, you know good
agronomics and so forth. So youdon't let it get to the point
where you know the weeds are,you know more, more, you know

(39:30):
there's more of them than thanis the is the desirable forage,

yeah. And I think Dwight mentioned the
aminopyralid, and we don't spraymuch clopyralid in the state,
but the manure and the compostand the hay, I just think it's
worth mentioning here, just tosupport him in that that's our
number one most common problemthing that we have in Missouri

(39:55):
when it comes to our clinic andgetting samples from home.
Owners and greenhouses andthings, and I guess what I've
learned is I'm not doing verygood at education. I knew that,
but that, I guess what I'velearned is that our our
horticultural audience, our ourour homeowners, our greenhouse

(40:16):
growers, are just any of thatkind of clientele are not as
familiar with this issue, anddon't really know this, and that
was an assumption that I madethat was faulty, and it still
continues every year. And sowe've started trying to, I've
tried to kind of bridge the gapwith some of our horticultural

(40:38):
people out in the state, andcertainly within Extension,
we're trying to do better. AndI'm just, I'm just saying it is,
it is a huge issue that doesn'tend well for a lot of people. It
usually gets everybody all upseton both sides of it and and the
fact that Aminopyralid orclopyralid or picloram but

(40:58):
mostly it's Aminopyralid, canreally hang around in that
manure and straw and compost, orgetting more and more of that
and and then somebody goes toplant something or use uses that
around their plants or whatever,and doesn't understand what's
going on or why that happened.So I think we need to do better

(41:20):
as an industry at that wholething, even, even though I will
say that the first thing you seeon most of those labels is this
little infographic running rightalong the side. You know that
very clearly, kind of gives youa little cartoon of all of this,
but we're missing it somewhere.We're missing it, I don't know.

So another important reminder to always,
always check labels before,before we use anything. So
Kevin, you mentioned yourclinic, so this is a good
opportunity. Could you talkabout some of the resources
available to folks who arelooking for weed management,
resources and pastures?

Yeah. Well, you know all of us, we would say,
you know, like Dwight said, thefirst thing is, what? What is
it? And some people just don'treally care what it is, and just
want to say, what a spray. Andso use your use your extension
agents, use your statespecialist. Send us pictures.
Send it to your clinic. Youknow, I'm not gonna like when

(42:24):
I've had these situations wheresomebody says, Well, I don't
know what it is, and this otherthese can't, they can't tell me
either. Can you just tell mesomething to spray? And I
basically just say, No, I'm I'mnot going to, you know, you have
to send it to me or send me goodphotos. I need to know what it
is. I'm not going to have youcoming back here in two weeks
saying it didn't die. So, youknow, first step is work with

(42:46):
your extension folks andeverything, and try to get it
ID. And then certainly, we havenumerous publications. Every
state has its own version ofweed management recommendations,
and there's a lot of good onesout there, Alyssa and I, and
Illinois and Indiana all kind ofgo together on one publication.

(43:11):
It's five states. Alyssa or Idon't know how many states it
is, four, whatever. So in KState and Penn State both have
better resources than us, sothey have their own and they
have smarter people. And so Ithink there's a lot of good
sources of of weed controlrecommendation out there in past

(43:34):
years. Yeah, yeah.

And I'd agree with that. I mean, so, so
yeah, a lot of times what we'lldo is we'll, similar to what you
would you do in the Midwest, is,we'll, we'll pair up with our
mid Atlantic, you know,universities, and have, like, a
mid atlantic weed control guide.We that's, that's published as
well. So and then, and then one,one good thing about these tier
and then northeast, from aresource standpoint, is, is we

(43:57):
have the weeds of the Northeast,which is a, it would just been a
recently updated publication. Soit contains, oh, I don't know,
550, or 600 different species ofweeds. That's a really good,
really good publication. Sothat's one that i i recommend
quite a bit, the weeds of theNortheast the second edition.
And then, actually, believe itor not, you know, there's these
publications like, like newcombswildflower guide and Peterson's

(44:21):
wildflower guide, you know,publications like that. You know
that since, since we're dealingwith these pasture systems, and
a lot of them are up againstwooded areas, you know, a lot of
times we get kind of thiscreepage of these, kind of
these, you know, for lack of abetter word, kind of these
weirdo weeds, or weirdo speciesthat come in, and a lot of
times, you know, they aren't thetypical, you know, species that
we deal with, you know, in cornand soybeans and small grains

(44:43):
and so forth, but, but they, youknow, we find them in pasture.
So that's where some of thesewildflower guides do a really
good job of, you know, providingsome, some additional, you know,
insight into what theidentification is. And then
there's all kind of resourcesonline, especially when it comes
to to poison. This toxic, toxic,toxic plant issues. You know,

(45:04):
there's a lot of lot of, youknow, university in a
veterinary, you know, schoolsthat have some good, good
resources and like. And I thinkwe can maybe put a listing of
those somehow on the podcast.But maybe I can, I can send you
the list that I have, and maybeKevin has some ones that he
uses. But whenever I give apresentation on pastures, I
always have a listing of severalresources and so forth that can

(45:26):
be, that can be used, you know,especially if you know, for
toxic plant issues and so forth.And one thing that I have
noticed over the years is, youknow, you have to be careful
where you get your information,and what is mean by that is,
there are some, some books outthere that are pretty alarmist
when it comes to, you know, whenyou know, identification of

(45:47):
species and understanding, youknow, especially, I hate to say
it, but a lot of the horsepeople in particular, you know,
they're very, very particularabout things. And then it seems
like in any, any type ofspecies, they're, they'll call
it toxic when, when really isprobably not toxic. It may, it
may just cause them, you know,maybe an upset stomach, or
something like that, but, but,you know, I don't know if you
can call that toxic. So anyway,all I'm saying is you need to be

(46:09):
just, just be aware of the, youknow, where you're getting your
your sources for for some ofthis, you know, identification,
and

we can watch all those resources in the show
notes. So folks have links andcan go access those. So last
question for today, where can wefind more information from you
guys? Do you have social mediasites or lab websites to point
folks to if, if they'reinterested in more from your
programs?

Yeah, for us, it's just Weed
science.missouri.edu. Is ourwebsite, and you scroll down,
there's a pasture section, slideshows and everything, with some
of the recent stuff we're sayingabout pastures. And then our
social media is Mizzou WeedScience on Facebook and show me

(46:53):
weeds on Twitter.

Yeah. As far as here at Penn State,
probably the best kind ofclearing house, if you will,
that has information related.This is just our Penn State
Extension website. And if youjust type in Penn State
Extension, there'll be an areawhere you can just type in, you
know, whatever you're interestedin, if you're interested in, you
know, pasture weeds or aspecific species or whatnot.
There's a lot of differentarticles that I've written on

(47:18):
there, and then also other otherresources, you know, associated
with those. So that's probablythe easiest, you know, we do
have a, we have do a Penn State,you know, Weed Science page. But
it, you know, unfortunately, wedon't keep it up as well as we
should. So, so a lot of the moreup to date articles would be on
the Penn State Extension site.Well,

thank you so much, Kevin and Dwight for
joining us today. It was, it wasfun to talk all about pastures
and the weed management there.So we hope you'll tune in next
week to the War Against Weedspodcast.
Thanks for tuning in. Just areminder, you can find this and

(47:58):
other podcasts and resources onthe crop protection network.
This network has a host ofinformation from extension
programs across the US about allthings pest management. We hope
to catch you next week On thewar against weeds Podcast. You

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S9 E3 - Pasture Weed Management

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