Weed Specialist Discusses Edible Beans

The province's weed specialist has some advice for edible bean growers.

Tammy Jones was a guest speaker at the Edible Bean Meetings held last week in Altona and Portage la Prairie.

"I think we need to look at narrowing our rows so that we have canopy closure earlier," she said. "Try and grow as competitive of a bean as you can within edible beans. That's a little bit challenging, but a leafier bean, something that's going to help with with canopy closure. Also, make sure that your seeding rates are up as high as you can and then we need to look at either cover crops or inter-row tillage to maybe use some of those tools to minimize our weed pressure rather than just looking at herbicides as the only tool out there."

Jones says if using herbicides, it's important to find one that suits edible beans and to consider layering them.