May 16, 2024
Early shedding wild radish
Written by: Peter Newman The best way to avoid things that make you fat is to stay away from scales, photos and mirrors. And, if…
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AHRI Insight
harvest weed seed control
April 8, 2024
Can wild radish evade HWSC?
Written by: Peter Newman Can wild radish evade HWSC? Every time I have given a presentation about harvest weed seed control (HWSC), without fail the…
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September 25, 2019
Trending now: herbicide resistance management
‘Trending now’ seems to be everywhere – iTunes, Twitter, the news, so why not herbicide resistance? What have been the #Top5 trends in resistance management over the past decade?
As a young agronomist 20-something years ago (clearly before trending was a thing), I remember learning about the threat of herbicide resistance as if it was a kind of apocalypse. Some growers were genuinely concerned that they wouldn’t be able to continue farming.
We’ve come a long way in a relatively short time. In this insight, we look closely at what’s trending in the herbicide resistance management space.
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AHRI Insight
September 19, 2019
What’s the cost of harvest weed seed control for YOU?
The ad in the paper that reads “Horse, free to a good home” seems to be a good deal at first, but what is the true cost of owning a horse? Roughly similar to running a Lamborghini as I understand!
The ‘do it yourself’ narrow windrow burning chute seems cheap at the time, but what is the true cost?
It depends…
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AHRI Insight
June 29, 2018
Spoiled rotten – the sequel
Four years ago, we suggested in AHRI insight that farmers were spoiled for choice with five harvest weed seed control tools to choose from with a sixth in development. Well, a lot has happened since then. We now have seven harvest weed seed control tools to choose from, so if farmers were spoiled for choice in 2014 they are absolutely spoiled rotten now!
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AHRI Insight
July 13, 2017
Harvest weed seed control is now mainstream
Australians invented the lawn mower, rotary clothes hoists, plastic bank notes, WiFi, the electric drill, and five of the six harvest weed seed control (HWSC) techniques. And while the Canadians invented the chaff cart (to feed livestock) it was Australian farmers and researchers who started using it for HWSC. So we’re going to claim HWSC as a true blue Aussie invention too! We are the inventors of some of the key tools of HWSC and a recent GRDC grower survey has shown that we are by far the world leaders in the adoption of these practices.
Not so long ago harvest weed seed control (HWSC) was only used by a minority of early adopting grain growers, now it has gone mainstream and pretty soon just about everyone will be doing it.
Every few years GRDC fund a large grower practices telephone survey. The most recent survey was conducted by CSIRO in 2014, and they collaborated with Michael Walsh who at the time managed the HWSC program at AHRI (now at University of Sydney) to design the HWSC questions. Michael has now reported on the results in a recent scientific publication.
The survey revealed 43% of Australian grain growers are currently practising HWSC and this is set to double within the next five years. Narrow windrow burning is currently the most commonly used practice, with 30% of growers adopting this approach. While its popularity is booming now and probably will stay that way for the next five years, Michael says it’s unlikely to remain the frontrunner in the future. There are some new kids on the HWSC block that are being taken up by Australian grain growers, namely chaff tramlining and the integrated Harrington Seed Destructor (iHSD).
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AHRI Insight
June 13, 2017
Harvest weed seed control tools – they all work
On November 5th, 2010, a truck arrived at Yuna at the northern tip of the Western Australian wheatbelt. Its cargo was a John Deere 9650 harvester with a tow-behind Harrington Seed Destructor attached. Twenty local farmers had arrived to see the new machine that they’d heard about for so long. And what did he find from two years of this GRDC funded, AHRI supported research? One, solitary number: 60%. That’s not the whole story though…read on for more!
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AHRI Insight
May 26, 2016
Harvest Weed Seed Control in the North (it’s possible)
Two English shoe salesmen were sent to Africa in the late 1800’s to see if there was a market for their product. The first salesman…
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AHRI Insight
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