Soybean fields are about to close their canopy. This means that there will undoubtedly be several fields that look like they are not just growing soybeans out there. Loads of farmers will choose not to spray a post-emergent residual herbicide earlier on and find themselves in a situation where they must try to fight back the weeds that slipped through. If you find yourself in this situation, the following information may help you succeed in cleaning up your fields significantly before the canopy and your window of opportunity closes.
Small Weeds are Threats as Well
While easier to kill, smaller weeds are just as much of a threat as bigger weeds. They may be easier to kill in theory, but the likelihood that there are significantly more smaller weeds than bigger weeds is very high. If a weed gets to a large size, that means that it is winning the competition amongst other plants in the area, but smaller weeds are competing as well. Every little plant out there that is not one of your soybeans is competing for nutrients, moisture, and sunlight. This means that everything out there that isn’t one of your soybeans is an enemy, and it is advised you deal with as many as possible.
Waterhemp: King of the Weeds
Easily the most infamous weed in our area is the waterhemp. If given room to grow, it can tower above all other plants in the area and spread its branches out over a massive area. It tends to look like a bush or small tree if left to its own devices. These pests can germinate several times throughout the growing season and can sprout through the ground at any time. Waterhemp is exceedingly hard to kill, given that it has built resistance to most available herbicides. There could be an entire article on the many different reasons waterhemp is treacherous adversary, but to keep things short, you just need to know (and you probably already do) that these guys are bad news. If you have a waterhemp problem right now, then you may have a hard road ahead of you.
Don’t Forget the Grass
Grass has a way of sneaking up on you. It blends in among broadleaves that show themselves more apparently but is usually there all the same. Grass plays a big numbers game, as each plant does not take much away from your soybeans. But these plants congregate in the hundreds or thousands and end up creating a mat across the ground. This could end up being a detriment to your beans and should be dealt with.
Choose your Weapon Wisely
When deciding which herbicide to use, you need to consider first what variety of soybean you chose when planting. More specifically, you need to consider what herbicide-resistant traits your variety of choice has. For instance, if you bought Xtend beans, then using a Liberty herbicide will likely kill your plants. The same goes for the reverse. Assuming you know what your plants can handle as far as herbicides go, let’s dive into what your weeds can and can’t handle.
If you can use glyphosate (Round-Up or Round-Up adjacent), then you will knock back just about every weed out there with the exception of waterhemp and marestail, who have built up strong resistances to glyphosate. For waterhemp and marestail, you have limited options. If you are able to use a dicamba product such as Xtendimax, then you stand a decent chance of knocking back a significant amount of these vermin. If you are able to use a gluphosinate product (Liberty or Liberty-adjacent), then you stand a decent chance of killing whatever you hit with it. This means that gluphosinate is more or less a contact-killer. If you want to kill a plant with it, you must hit every growing point, which becomes more and more difficult as the soybean canopy closes.
For grass, if you are using a glyphosate product, then you should be fine. However, if you are not, then you will want to invest in a group 1 herbicide, such as clethodim (Select or Select-adjacent product) meant for killing grasses. The same also goes for volunteer corn, which will most likely be herbicide resistant. It should be noted that these grass herbicides take a while before showing the physical signs of their effects.
Final Thoughts
There is a massive amount of information to cover when it comes to different weeds and different herbicides to use on them, much more than what is covered in this article. But hopefully, this article can help to give you a basic overview of knowledge given the quickly closing canopy and window to spray your soybeans.
If you want to learn more on this and other concerns with your weeds, then you may want to contact some professionals that have a lot of experience in this area. Year after year, our agronomists and herbicide sales staff have successfully guided our farmers toward keeping their fields clean.
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