March 2, 2018
Has herbicide resistance in ryegrass in WA plateaued?
“The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.” George Will, American journalist, author and Pulitzer Prize-winner.
We are not pessimists at AHRI, but let’s face it, we rarely have good news when it comes to reporting on the level of resistance progression on Australian farms. We are normally proven right that herbicide resistance levels are continually increasing.
The latest results from the AHRI random ryegrass resistance survey of WA led by Dr Mechelle Owen isn’t necessarily good news, but it’s about as good as we could have hoped. We know that herbicide resistance levels almost never decrease through time, so the very best that we can hope for is that resistance levels plateau, which is what Mechelle found for a number of herbicides.
