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July 26, 2019

Crops are doin’ it for themselves

We answer a few poignant questions in this insight, including: ‘Can crops do more of the heavy lifting when it comes to weed control than modern farming methods have allowed them?’

or

‘Have we tried so hard to protect crops from weeds that we have forgotten that they have innate mechanisms to ‘stand on their own two feet’ and ‘do it for themselves’?’

A series of important studies into the practical implications of harnessing the crop’s ability to defend itself against weeds are starting to produce important results, leading to improvements in farming practice and the development of new cultivars.

July 11, 2019

No knockdown, no worries, if…

As AHRI and Weedsmart Western region agronomist, Pete recently gave a presentation to a group of high rainfall farmers who were concerned that they hadn’t had a decent knockdown for three years in a row.  What he came up with, based on research and experience, was that we definitely should not be waiting for a knockdown, but we need to throw enough weed management at the farming system to make it work. No knockdown, no worries, if… To find out what the “ifs” are, click through to read the insight.

July 2, 2019

Thermal weed control – just hot air, or site-specific reality?

Did you know that rotary hoeing requires less energy than steaming? Or that offset discing requires less energy than microwaving?

Well, that’s the case when it comes to controlling weeds.

An epic effort to review 170 papers by a team from the University of Sydney (Guy Coleman et al) has shown that mechanical weed control options (eg. tillage) can use significantly less energy than thermal options (eg. heat) to kill weeds. Herbicide energy use sits somewhere in the middle.

May 31, 2019

Chickpea vs annual ryegrass – shaking off the handicap

Chickpeas are short and annual ryegrass takes advantage!

At 5’2″, Jonte Hall is pretty short by everyday standards, let alone by Harlem Globetrotter standards. Nicknamed ‘Too Tall’, recently-retired guard Jonte is the smallest player to wear the Globetrotter’s jersey since the team was founded in 1926.

Globetrotter veteran Herbert ‘Flight Time’ Lang, a more conventional-sized 6-foot-3 forward, is quoted as saying: “Too Tall is proof that if you stay focused, act positive and take advantage of opportunities, good things can happen.”

So, how can chickpea play to its strengths & win?

May 20, 2019

Easy to adopt crop competition tools

“We choose to go to the Moon! We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard,” John F. Kennedy, 1962. All well and good if you’re the American government with a king’s ransom to spend. But if you’re an Australian farmer? It’s probably better to do the easy things. “We choose to adopt stacked crop competition tools, not because they are hard, but because they are easy.”

May 8, 2019

Twenty five years of testing annual ryegrass resistance – it’s a numbers game

Charles Sturt University has sown, sprayed and counted annual ryegrass from around 12 million seeds submitted from more than 5000 samples sent in from across Australia since it started testing for herbicide resistance in 1991…and that’s just ryegrass. Mind numbing stuff. But more than 5000 ryegrass samples? Most tested to five or six herbicides? Think about the value of that information! Dr John Broster and Professor Jim Pratley from CSU have analysed the data from ryegrass samples sent to the testing service over the 25 year period from 1991 to 2015.

March 29, 2019

What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger

Experiencing hardship is often the best way to learn the big lessons of life. Heartbreak, financial difficulty, hunger and hard manual labour are often times great motivators and they build resilience in those individuals that are not crushed by them.But, like banging your head against a brick wall, it is good when it stops! Taking a person who has experienced hardship and giving them an opportunity or access to resources will often result in great success. There are many examples where tenacity and grit have underpinned the success of social reformers, sportspersons, businesspeople and performers, and even every-day people in their every-day lives.  Researchers Gulshan Mahajan, Amar Matloob, Barbara George-Jaeggli, Michael Walsh and Bhagirath Chauhan have studied this same phenomenon in an emerging weed in the northern grains region – African turnipweed.

March 19, 2019

2,4-D resistance in radish is not metabolic resistance

If I took a footballer, say Dustin Martin, and cut off one of his arms, chances are he wouldn’t function too well as a footballer anymore (although knowing Dusty he would probably work out a way around it!)If I then sewed his arm back on so it worked perfectly, he would be back to his Brownlow medal winning best.This is sort of what happens with 2,4-D in wild radish and explains why metabolic resistance is not the mechanism of wild radish resistance to 2,4-D.  We now know this thanks to some painstaking research by AHRI researcher, Danica Goggin with funding from ARC and Nufarm.The short story here is that resistance in wild radish to 2,4-D is not metabolic resistance.  The longer story is much more interesting and explains how this works in wild radish, and how 2,4-D tolerance in grass plants is (partially) through a metabolic process.

March 6, 2019

Pre-emergent herbicides in stubble – strike or foul?

Ever tried walking out onto a 10-pin bowling alley? It’s generally not pretty, often resulting in a rapid and undignified descent to ground level…But that’s just what we need to get pre-emergent herbicides to slide off stubble and into the soil, which can be difficult in higher residue systems. Rainfall is obviously a key driver in leaching herbicides from stubble before they dissipate, but as we all know rain can be an unpredictable beast. Fortunately, research has shown that some pre-emergent herbicides require far less rainfall to move off stubble and into the soil where they can control germinating weeds. 

December 3, 2018

The significant weed science research stories of 2018

Written by: Jessica Strauss, Peter Newman, Cindy Benjamin, Kirrily Condon  It’s been a big year for AHRI. Former AHRI Director, Stephen Powles retired from the position…