Better Farming - October 2016

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Better Farming October 2016 Farm News First > 29
trial plots where shallow cultivations
are used throughout a typical north
European arable rotation of canola/
winter wheat/winter wheat and, even
with glyphosate treatment before
sowing, the blackgrass population has
risen in four years from 160 heads per
square meter to an average 2,800
heads. (Blackgrass is an annual grass
weed that is particularly prevalent in
Northern Europe.) Even in plots with
absolutely no herbicide treatment
– but with deep plowing every year
– the rise in blackgrass population is
less than this.”
Crop advisers have watched with
concern as low-till or no-till farms
struggle with weed resistance to most
current herbicides. Well-timed
applications with the sprayer can still
be effective, said Naunheim. But
European climate means the weather
windows for perfect spraying are few
and far between. On top of this, early
sowing to squeeze higher yields,
particularly from canola, means
there’s little time for bare land
mechanical weeding and spraying
before crop emergence.
Without glyphosate, or even while
still using it, a radical antidote is
already being practiced. “We are
telling our customers with really
serious blackgrass problems to
consider stopping winter wheat in
some fields for a few years, substitut-
ing spring-sown cereals or legumes
that allow more time for mechanical
and chemical control measures, or
introducing grass leys into the
rotation with several forage cuts per
season,” explains Naunheim.
A less radical approach can mean
a return to soil inversion with the
conventional plow as well as a larger
variety of crops in the rotation. “For
instance field beans or maybe
lupines,” he says. “I know farmers
who have taken this route. It’s a
tough call because there’s still no
combining crop in northwest Europe
leaving a better margin than winter
wheat.”
What this profit looks like in
Canadian dollars can be seen from
last November’s European milling
GLYPHOSATE ALTERNATIVES
Top wheat grower in Germany, Mathias Jaeger, averages four tonnes per
acre yield and dedicates 15 acres of his land to trials that test for the
best blackgrass control methods.