38 Ate Today? Thank a Farmer. Better Farming | January 2024 ‘SOME THINGS HAVEN’T CHANGED MUCH’ A look at crop production through the years. By Patrick Lynch A producer I’ve known for many years who farms in Oxford County with his family and grows several crops recently made the comment: “Some things haven’t changed much. We used to have a four-row combine header and combine at four mph. Now we have a much bigger combine but still can only combine at four mph. Before we were getting 100 bushels per acre (bu/a) or so, and now we are getting over 200 bu/a. Some things don’t change over time.” But I think things have changed a lot in the last three to four years. Here are my latest thoughts on weeds, insects, diseases, genetics, tillage and water, all of which affect your crops. When I started in crop production, we used atrazine in corn. If there were weed escapes, we used more. George Jones, former corn expert, an early researcher of atrazine, and associate professor at the University of Guelph, proudly talked about using four pounds of atrazine in the fall and another four pounds in the spring. That type of usage lead to triazine-resistant weeds. Then we started to grow soybeans in Ontario. Common soybean programs include a lot of Group 2 herbicides. Now we have Group 2 herbicide resistance. Then we developed glyphosate resistance. We went from no herbicide-resistant weeds to over 20 weed species resistant to herbicides. Collectively there are eight different groups of herbicides that have resistant weeds. We have more weeds resistant to more herbicide groups in the last three to four years. Unfortunately this will continue. This means that we must do a better job of weed control. We could do so by documenting weed escapes and the herbicide group used and switch groups. There is a trend for more generic herbicides. This will continue. Main herbicide producers spend millions of dollars to register a herbicide and then another company formulates a generic product. I’m not sure where this will lead. I’ve always supported the main line manufacturing companies. I value their expertise when it comes to active ingredient knowledge. They give me better answers than companies that manufacture generics. I’ve seen issues with some generics not performing as well as the original active. I believe that we can live and work with generics but it means you have to have a good working relationship with your retail supplier. If they stock and sell generics, they will know how best to use them. Just be aware of which group you are using, as you must know which herbicide group your generic product belongs to. Many negative people say we’ll have no new active ingredients. I predict we’ll see at least one new active ingredient in the next few years. No one is certain about this – since the manufacturers want to keep this a secret for as long as possible – but there’s a good chance it could be a biological product. I’ve seen white mould kill weeds. Perhaps there are other fungi that can kill specific weeds. When I started in extension agriculture, tillage was used as a method of weed control. There were a lot of corn and bean acres “scuffled”. Now the move to less tillage has resulted in an increase in perennial weeds. A lot of equipment has been developed to mechanically control these weeds. This equipment was once used only by organic farmers but can now be used by anyone. Some of these systems are intended to be used in conjunction with chemical methods. Things like finger harrows and tang crops: the lynch fileS Perennial forages reduce new weeds. Emily Croft photo
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