Weeds might try to make a home in the same field as your corn, but certainly not as invited guests. After all, we know weeds can hurt corn yields by competing for vital nutrients, sunlight and moisture.
What’s less clear is when it really does start to affect corn yields. The short answer: as early as when corn is at the V2 growth stage.
Universities are also discovering that there might be more to weed competition and control than we typically think.
Weed control from early season to season-long
Of course, weed control doesn’t stop with early season. As Jody Wynia, corn marketing manager for Bayer explains, early season control is vital to keeping fields weed-free all season.
“The best way to manage weeds for a full season is to get ahead of them,” Wynia said. “And that starts by getting out there when the weeds are young.
Add image of young weed with caption: “Young weeds like this can damage yields 3 bu/A a day left uncontrolled.”
“Considering how quickly some of these weeds grow and how many seeds they produce, if you have to try to catch up with your weeds, you’ll be playing catch up all season long.”
Grower experiences using Capreno
Two growers recently told Bayer how they rely on early season weed control to achieve weed-free fields all season long.
John Anson of Andrews, Ind., has always been concerned with controlling weeds in his corn as early as possible and throughout the season.
“When it comes to weed control in my fields,” Anson explained, “I’m looking for the clean field through the whole season. We just feel keeping the fields clean in the corn fields gives us better yield if we can just keep our corn fields spotless.”
Unfortunately, many postemergence herbicides don’t offer the residual needed to really control weeds through canopy. Chris Thorp of Gibson City, Ill., discussed his past experiences with season-long weed control, particularly with postemergence herbicides.
“We haven't been really using a residual chemistry in our second application of corn,” Thorp said, “and we needed to find a product to do that.”
Thorp’s mindset is similar to that of Anson when it comes to weeds in his field, “I do not want to see a weed in the field at all.”
Anson and Thorp found the answer to season-long weed control with Capreno® herbicide. Anson applies Capreno early enough in the season that it works for him in a single pass. Thorp tankmixes Capreno with glyphosate and applies them as the second pass of a pre/post herbicide program.
“Capreno works really well in our area on the weed control,” Anson said. “The benefits go beyond weed control, though.
“Capreno seemed to be a lot safer spraying at the post timeframe we followed,” Anson added. “I felt that the corn was less brittle and less green snap after we sprayed on our corn and the corn seemed to be very safe if a storm came through.”
“We had a pretty nasty outbreak of marestail in our standing corn which was getting too tall to use other chemistries,” Thorp said. “We put Capreno out there as our second trip and we were just blown away by the control we received. Now, I'm still looking for a product that can take it out of soybeans.”