By Brian Hefty
Anytime you raise a grass crop like wheat or corn, grass control is more difficult than broadleaf control, and grass weeds can take a huge chunk of your yield if left uncontrolled for even a short period of time. I know you want to cut costs, but do not do that at the expense of grass control or your net profit will quickly shrink. Fortunately, there are grass control options in wheat that are good and inexpensive. Here’s the short list.
PRE-EMERGE – Pre-Pare. We love Pre-Pare because it is inexpensive ($4 to $6 per acre), pretty effective on both grasses and broadleaves, and kills weeds that are already up besides leaving residual. The full rate of 0.3 oz per acre is fine when the soil pH is less than 7.0; but when it is over 7.0, many farmers are cutting the rate to 0.2 oz.
POST-EMERGE – Axial, NextStep, Foxfire, Everest 2.0, Varro, PowerFlex, Outrider, Olympus, Osprey, Beyond (Clearfield Wheat ONLY), and combos like GoldSky, Wolverine Advanced, Axial Star, and Huskie Complete. I know. It’s confusing with all the options we have now, but here’s how we break it down and simplify it.
CLEARFIELD WHEAT ONLY – Beyond is okay on grass, but it’s not very good if the grass is over two inches tall. Plus, carryover to conventional crops is a big concern if you use the full rate. In other words, use Beyond with caution. The nice things about Beyond are that it has activity on almost any type of non-ALS-resistant grass and broadleaf, and it has good residual.
WINTER WHEAT ONLY – PowerFlex, Outrider, and Olympus are your best bets for cheatgrass. Osprey is probably better on jointed goatgrass. However, any winter annual grass is best controlled in the fall rather than spring. Carryover with each product is also a concern, depending on your rotation. PowerFlex has the least amount of carryover potential, but it may not be quite as good on cheat as Outrider.
PREMIXES – Anytime a broadleaf herbicide is tankmixed with a grass herbicide, count on your grass control to be reduced. Period. If you have a bad grass issue, we do not recommend any premix or tankmix. Use a straight grass product. However, if you only have a little bit of grass, having 1% to 5% less grass control may not be a big deal. GoldSky and Huskie Complete have the best cheatgrass activity. Axial Star and Wolverine Advanced are the best on wild oats and foxtails in our opinion. All four are around that $15 to $16 per acre mark.
WILD OATS & FOXTAIL – Varro and Everest 2.0 are ALS products. Axial, NextStep (Discover), and Foxfire (Axial/Puma) are in the ACCase group. The ALS products are going to be better on cheat, although still weak. Foxfire is easily the cheapest option in this category. It is a premix of Axial and the old Puma, so it’s going to be very good on foxtails and pretty good on wild oats. Axial is probably the most popular product in this group, but if you are fighting ACCase-resistant wild oats, Everest or Varro would be a better way to go.
I know there are a lot of products out there, but it’s nice to have options. Grass control is incredibly important in wheat, so our advice is use a pre, spray early post-emerge, and do everything else possible to raise a healthy wheat crop to choke out late-season grasses and broadleaves.