With the warmer temperatures hitting the Midwest, those winter annuals in the fields are starting to come back to life, but are nothing new to the farmers, says West Central FS Certified Crop Specialist Brendan Marshall:
“Winter annuals are going to start coming back to life right now, especially in our area. We have a lot of purple henbit and there is quite a bit of chickweed, but an early application of burndown, especially in no-till, it kills it right away, but the green and the purple are still there for a while, but it will dry up eventually. We are going to start having some lambsquarters pop up and giant ragweed, that is the same way it is every year. It usually starts along the edge of the field, unless you are a no-till situation, then you might have it more throughout the field, but we deal with it every year and it isn’t a problem.”
Additionally, with the lack of moisture over the winter, Marshall informs they were able to get an earlier start to field work this spring with anhydrous ammonia and dry fertilizer application.