By Darren Hefty

The title says it all.  Is it still worth it?  Other than questions about our upcoming Field Day, this is what most of the questions I’m getting are about.  Why is this even a question?

YES – GET OUT THERE AND SPRAY

  1. You don’t want weeds to go to seed so they’re an even bigger problem next year.
  2. You don’t want a mess that will make harvest more difficult.
  3. You don’t want to lose yield.
  4. You need to spray fungicide and insecticide, too, so it’s not an extra trip anyway. Chances are there are more than just weeds to control in the field.

Those are good reasons why you should get out there right now and kill every weed in your soybean fields.  However, there are some other concerns:

NO – I DON’T THINK SPRAYING IS A GOOD IDEA

  1. I don’t want to burn the soybeans and drop blooms or possibly hurt yield.
  2. I don’t want to invest any more money because it’s going to be tough to make any profit already.
  3. I don’t want to drive over soybeans this late in the season because I’ll hurt my yield.
  4. I’m worried about carryover potential of the herbicides I may have to use to kill the weeds.
  5. There are no products left that I can still use to kill the weeds that are out there.

The truth is you’ve got to consider both sides of the equation and likely make a field by field judgment.  Looking through the reasons for NOT spraying, there are obviously holes in each argument.

  1. There are products that don’t create much leaf response that can be used.  Plus, if the weed pressure is bad enough, they may not hit many of the soybean leaves anyway.  Also, it may be worth knocking a bushel or two off your yield potential to get rid of weeds that could hurt yield by 10 or 20 bushels this year and be even tougher to kill next year.
  2. Investing more money – The big thing is to look at crop input purchases as investments rather than just as costs.  Yes, you’re spending more money.  The key is to look at the payback.  If it costs you $10 to kill the weeds and you get 5 more bushels because of it, at $9 soybeans that’s a tremendously good return on investment!
  3. Driving over soybeans – This is real.  Drive over beans late and you do take a small amount off yield.  You can hire a plane to avoid this completely.  You can rig up your sprayer to push more of the beans to the side rather than running them over (great ROI here). Next year, you can plan on this and leave skip rows (tram lines).
  4. Carryover – Yes, some products like Flexstar and Pursuit have carryover potential this late in the year, but there are plenty like Cobra, Resource, Cadet, Harass, and volunteer corn herbicides that don’t.  You just have to watch the pre-harvest intervals, which in most cases are around 60 days but vary by product and sometimes by state.
  5. Product selection – Your agronomist still has some weapons left in the arsenal.  Just ask.

Should you still spray weeds in July?  That’s up to you.  There is a lot of evidence to say that you should, so don’t quit scouting until harvest is done.  Your profit this year and in future years depends on it.