Field Days Provide Excellent Information

I am always amazed at the new information attendees can learn on a field tour. Farmers may studiously keep up with new information and technology, but attendance at a field day always provides new tidbits of useful information they may not find anywhere else. This year's MSU-Eastern Agricultural Research Center's (EARC) field day, held on Thursday, July 19, was no exception.

For instance, Dr. Prashant Jha, weed scientist at the Southern Agricultural Research Center who spoke at the EARC field day, told the crowd that lambs quarters, wild buckwheat, and field bindweed ALL have natural tolerance to Roundup and that growers will face increasing problems in dealing with these weeds. Scientists have confirmed that some areas have Kochia that exhibits Roundup tolerance as well, so Jha encourages people to contact him if they suspect they have any type of weed that shows tolerance to Roundup. "We will come to your farm, select seed from the suspected tolerant plant, analyze the seed, and if it is tolerant, we will give strategies and alternatives to the farmer to assist him in controlling these tolerant weeds," he commented.

Jha also pointed out that it takes five years to discover Roundup tolerant plants. "If just one tolerant plant remains in a field and produces seed, in five years you will have 30 to 40% resistance in that field," he said.

Jha advised farmers to use a variety of chemical in their control program. "There are good alternatives out there that help take the pressure off," he remarked. "I urge farmers to act proactively to manage weeds. Timing and rate is essential."

Another little tidbit of information gleaned from the field tour concerned safflower. The safflower varieties MonDak and Cardinal, developed by Dr. Jerry Bergman, now the director of the Williston Research Center, have produced over 2000 pounds of seed on dryland for the past three years. Also, the top three crop returns in the last few years have been safflower, sunflower, and canola. All three of these crops have improved disease and yield packages, which have allowed growers to capitalize on these oil crops.

Other interesting pieces of information the audience learned at the field day include the fact that this year Montana certified seed growers have an all time high planting of 72,000 acres of certified seed. All solid stem varieties of wheat have come from one ancient variety a researcher discovered seventy years ago.

EARC researchers have some extremely interesting data on fusarium and how well or poorly the coded trial beets perform in fusarium infected ground. Dr. Charles Flynn encourages all growers to attend the sugarbeet field tour scheduled for August. "We put all the coded trial varieties into our fusarium trial test," he reported during field day. "This is quite a dramatic test; some varieties are nearly dead while other varieties look marvelous. Growers need to attend the sugarbeet tour in August to see this for themselves."

Field trials are well worth attending. People can learn a tremendous amount in a short period of time. This information can only help a grower improve his or her operation.