Saskatchewan Farmer Uses Another Option For Weed Control

Over the last few years, farmers have been seeing an increase in herbicide resistance weeds.

Josh Lade is originally from Australia, where producers have been using a Seed Terminator to control weed issues.

Lade has been farming in Saskatchewan for about ten years and has been using that technology on his farm here.

He was one of the first producers in Canada to use the technology, which attaches to the back of the combine and is basically a multi-stage hammermill.

"You got a rotor that's spinning at 3000 rpm, and it's got those hammers that push it through the first screen. It hits one of those rotor bars smashes through the next screen, and then it's another rotor bar then it exits the next screen."

On the Seed Terminator website, they talk about Lade's on farm trials.

Josh has been conducting on-farm trials to test this theory. In a wheat crop during the 2018 season, Josh found there was 4.9 bushel per acre yield penalty in areas where there was a grass spray compared to areas where there was no grass spray. With a wheat price of $7 per bushel and a chemical price of $12 per acre, this yield penalty worked out to be $46/ac.

He ran the same trials in 2020 which resulted in a 2.8bsh/ ac yield penalty between sprayed and non-sprayed areas, resulting in a $38/ac penalty including the cost of the chemical. The penalty was even greater in barley. Averaged across five repetitions, the yield difference was 6.4bsh/ac, resulting in a penalty of $42/ac. 

“We have often seen a tolerance to herbicides, but we have never seen it as a yield impact, only as impeded growth during the season,” Josh said. “It is only since doing these trials I have realised that, depending on the herbicide, the impact could be between 6-7bsh/ac. Other ‘safer’ herbicides could be costing us 3bsh/ ac in yield.”  *

Lade says the reality of a weed that is present at harvest time is that it is the fittest weed of the year.

"It's gotten through the services of herbicides. It's gotten through the herbicides we may have applied during the season. You know, it's gotten through everything that we've done through that year, and now it's present at harvest time. And if we just go through with that harvester, clip them off, and if we can't get them in the grain tank, they're just exiting the back of the combine and becoming next year's problem."