Extreme and severe drought conditions continue to spread across much of the United States, increasing the potential for ineffective weed resistance for growers.
We all know weeds grow more rapidly in soils where it has recently rained, especially for the usual suspects of weeds we see every summer. When this occurs, get back into your fields and scout how much growth has taken place a few days after it rains. This will determine if your application rate should be altered.
Dry soils can cause headaches for growers when it comes to postemergence weed control. The part of the plant above ground toughens and thickens in these adverse conditions. This change greatly reduces the amount of herbicide the plant can absorb, offering little weed control.
While no absolute solution exists, there are things you can do to increase the likelihood you applied postemergence herbicide is absorbed. The simplest advice we can offer is to slow down when spraying. With dry soil conditions, you generate more dust driving through your field. This dust kicked up lands on the crops and keeps what you're spraying from getting to the plant. Running your sprayer at a lower speed will reduce the amount of dust and help the postemergence herbicides attach to your crops.
In addition, using a full rate when applying postemergence herbicides in dry conditions will help. Always read the labels of your postemergence herbicides, but typically applying the full recommended rate will support weed control for adverse conditions.
Conditions now aren't nearly as bad as previous droughts of record proportion, however long-term forecasts call for continued high temperatures and little to no precipitation. At least 19 states have already seen temperatures reach 100 degrees, and we're not even into July yet.
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