Will Rising Temperatures Make Superweeds Even Stronger?
Widely used herbicides are struggling to kill some weeds. Some experts think heat could be part of the problem.
From the digital magazine, Undark • Dec. 7, 2020
By Natasha Gilbert • 12.07.2020
Around 10 years ago, in the fierce heat of the Kansas summer, many of the noxious kochia weeds invading Phillip Stahlman's research fields simply wouldn't budge when sprayed with a mixture of two widely used herbicides, glyphosate and dicamba. Just a few months earlier, in the cooler spring weather, the herbicide mixture had easily triggered the weed's small thin leaves to curl up and turn brown, signaling the plant's demise.
Now the stalwart weed had Stahlman stumped. Stahlman, then a weed scientist at Kansas State University, had never encountered this problem with herbicides before. He initially assumed that he had applied the agrichemicals incorrectly. But year after year, the same thing happened. Stahlman knew something was up. He kept a close watch on the weeds in his fields. He also conferred with local farmers who reported seeing similar problems. “The light didn't come on for a while until the issue kept reoccurring. It was like putting together a puzzle,” says Stahlman.
Eventually, Stahlman, who has since retired, decided that the problem was likely temperature: Something about spraying in high heat was rendering the herbicides less effective.
Stahlman is not alone in making this observation. Today, mounting evidence suggests that temperatures of around 90 degrees Fahrenheit or above can make some herbicide-resistant weeds even more resistant, and cause other weeds to be less sensitive to certain chemicals.
Some farmers say they know high temperatures can mess with some herbicides, so they try to avoid spraying in the heat of the day. “A good rule of thumb is if it's 85 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit, just don't spray,” says Curt Gottschalk, a farm manager in Hays, Kansas.
Not all experts agree that this pattern, largely demonstrated in lab experiments, poses a problem for farmers. And some herbicides appear to work even better at high temperatures. But if heat is boosting many weeds' resistance to major herbicides, the implications could be significant. Left unchecked, weeds can devastate harvests and income — if farmers didn't make an effort to control weeds, they could wipe out around half of all corn and soybean yields across the U.S and Canada, according to the Weed Science Society of America, a nonprofit society of academic and industry scientists. The loss could cost farmers around $43 billion annually.
Farmers are already battling against epidemics of weeds that have developed genetic resistance to multiple herbicides, including glyphosate and dicamba. Stahlman and other weed researchers argue that temperature could be an overlooked second factor strengthening weeds' defenses against herbicides. Although most farmers now understand that temperature affects herbicides, to the untrained eye it could look just like herbicide resistance, Stahlman says.
These researchers also fear the issue could worsen in the future as climate change raises temperatures and extreme weather events, including heat waves, become more frequent.
“We already know that herbicide resistance is the most problematic issue in chemical weed control,” Maor Matzrafi, a weed scientist at Israel's national Agricultural Research Organization, wrote in an email to Undark. “Maybe reduced sensitivity due to climate change is next in line.”
Farmers used to rely less on herbicides, instead controlling weeds using laborious methods such as tilling and manual removal. But, starting in the mid-1990s, biotechnology companies began debuting genetically modified crops that were resistant to common, powerful herbicides. The new seeds allowed farmers to liberally spray their fields with agrochemicals to kill weeds while their GM crop flourished. The technology made most manual weeding unnecessary, and herbicide use surged globally. But weeds evolved in response, and herbicide resistant varieties emerged. That has set off a new battle between farmers and weeds, with farmers increasingly using combinations of chemicals, as well as additional doses, to try to knock off weeds.
After Stahlman's experience with kochia weeds, though, he began to examine whether temperature could be affecting herbicide performance more than was widely recognized. (Stahlman, like many academic weed scientists, has received research funding from agrochemical companies in the past.)
To decipher how heat helps weeds fend off herbicides, Stahlman teamed up with KSU colleagues Mithila Jugulam, a weed physiologist, and Junjun Ou, a research assistant. The team grew seedlings from kochia populations that originated in Kansas, in chambers kept at temperatures ranging from 63.5 to 90.5 degrees Fahrenheit — representative of the state's spring and summer daytime heat. The temperature in the chambers dropped every 12 hours to mimic cooler nighttimes. When the seedlings reached around 4 inches high, the researchers dosed some with glyphosate and others with dicamba. At weekly intervals, the team examined the weeds for signs of injury. After one month, they cut down the weeds and dried and weighed them.
The team found that, at high temperatures, they needed more than twice the amount of glyphosate and dicamba to control weeds. They published their results in 2016.
“A good rule of thumb is if it's 85 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit, just don't spray,” says Curt Gottschalk, a farm manager in Hays, Kansas.
To understand why heat reduced sensitivity, the researchers tracked the herbicides' paths through the weeds using mildly radioactive versions of glyphosate and dicamba. The former previously manufactured by Monsanto, and the latter produced by BASF Corp. (BASF Corp. provided a graduate student assistantship to Ou for a different project.)
The team found that the leaves absorbed less glyphosate at higher temperatures. They're not sure why, but Jugulam thinks the heat may encourage the kochia to develop thicker cuticles — a protective layer on the leaf surface — which then boost the weeds' defenses against the herbicide. The team discovered a different process at work when the weeds encountered dicamba. Temperature did not affect the amount of dicamba that the weeds' absorbed, but it did hinder the herbicide's movement through the plant so that less reached its target — the tissue developing at the tips of new shoots and leaves.
In another study, published last year, Jugulam turned her attention to the herbicide 2,4-D, one of the ingredients of agent orange, an infamous defoliant used in the Vietnam War. Today, it's one of the most widely used herbicides. Jugulam tested how temperature affected the herbicide's ability to control common waterhemp, a broadleaf weed found encroaching on Midwestern corn and soybean fields.
In the tests, Jugulam examined some common waterhemp that had developed genetic resistance to 2,4-D, and some that had not. She found that it took more than three time as much herbicide to kill the resistant weed under hot, dry conditions than at cooler temperatures. She found a similar but smaller effect in the susceptible weeds.
Herbicide-resistant waterhemp survives exposure to 2,4-D by quickly breaking the chemical down into nontoxic substances before it can reach its targets at the tips of roots, stems, and leaves. When the temperature is high, Jugulam found, waterhemp breaks down those molecules faster.
Jugulam also noted that under high temperatures, some herbicide resistant weeds appear to become more resistant and some susceptible weeds may require more herbicide for their control.
Not all weeds and herbicides respond to temperature the same way. For example, Jugulam has also found that 2,4-D and glyphosate work better at higher temperatures against common and giant ragweed, two other weeds common in U.S. farmers' fields. Jugulam also says that, even in cases where heat does hinder herbicides, the impacts appear to be mostly limited to dry conditions. Areas with high humidity and rainfall might not see the same effects.
But some experts say evidence is growing in a variety of species and agrochemicals that temperature, and in some cases high carbon dioxide levels, affect weed control, at least in the laboratory.
In tests published in 2016, Matzrafi found that at high temperatures four different species of grass weeds stood up against diclofop-methyl, an ingredient in an herbicide manufactured by Bayer, significantly better than they did at lower temperatures. Matzrafi also found that high temperatures made another herbicide, pinoxaden, less able to curb growth of the invasive grass false brome. Moreover, the grass thrived even when it was switched from cooler conditions to a hotter environment up to two days after the herbicide treatment.(The research was partially funded by ADAMA Agricultural Solutions, an agrochemical company based in Israel.)
“Our findings, and many other studies since the ‘90s, suggest that post-application environmental conditions may also affect herbicide sensitivity,” explained Matzrafi in an email. Even if farmers spray during cooler temperatures, that might not be enough to avoid the effects of heat.

Those conditions, experts fear, will worsen under climate change. Already, many U.S. states important for agriculture, as well as other major food producing regions around the world, regularly experience temperatures topping 90 degrees Fahrenheit during growing seasons. Some researchers say that problems with heat and herbicide performance are coming to the fore now partly because of more frequent episodes of extreme heat over the past few decades.
However, it is hard to pin the effects seen today on recent climatic changes, Lewis Ziska, a plant physiologist at Columbia University in New York, wrote in an email to Undark. But, noting that weeds are “the greatest constraint for food production,” Ziska warns that “they will be a formidable challenge for farmers in a more extreme environment.”
In the Midwest, for example, temperatures could rise by an average of 8.5 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century, with longer and more frequent stretches of extreme heat, according to federal government projections. And in South Asia, including India — a globally important region for producing rice, pulses, nuts, and cotton — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that average annual temperatures will rise by nearly 6 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100.
In the first experiment of its kind, the results of which were reported last year, Matzrafi studied the joint effect of heat and raised carbon dioxide levels on two different weed species and found that the combination boosts weeds' herbicide defenses beyond that by either factor alone.
It's not clear whether herbicide manufacturers are prepared for the coming challenges of a warming planet. Many do not recommend optimal spraying temperatures to ensure efficacy in the guidelines they distribute to farmers.
In a written statement Clark Ouzts, a spokesperson for Sygenta, the manufacturer of pinoxaden, says the company has not studied the potential effects of climate change on the herbicide's activity, but that “field research and commercial applications have not shown temperature to have a significant impact on the activity of Pinoxaden.”
Charla Lord, a spokesperson for Bayer, wrote in a statement that the company's herbicides are “extensively tested to meet all regulators' requirements” and “labeled so applicators know how to apply for them for optimal control and success.” The company did not respond to specific questions regarding the efficacy of their products under high temperatures, although the company has posted about the challenges of high-temperature spraying on its website.
Corteva, which makes herbicides incorporating 2,4-D, did not respond to requests for comment on how high temperatures affect the herbicide's performance.
Not everyone is convinced that these experimental findings spell trouble for farmers. Some researchers and weed experts say that laboratory conditions differ radically from the field, making the results less pertinent. “I don't think we could say for sure that this is having an impact at the real-world scale,” wrote Brad Hanson, a weed expert at the University of California, Davis, in an email to Undark. Hanson worked with Matzrafi on the research published last year.
Hanson, who works with California farmers as a researcher and extension specialist, also wrote that farmers typically use enough herbicide to overcome any small changes in weed sensitivity brought on by heat.
Kassim Al-Khatib, a crop physiologist at the University of California, Davis who has investigated how herbicides perform under heat and humidity, wrote in an email to Undark that the studies are carried out under carefully controlled laboratory conditions that farmers would never find in their fields.
“What happens under controlled conditions does not generally support what happens in field conditions,” he wrote.
It's not clear whether herbicide manufacturers are prepared for the coming challenges of a warming planet.
In his own research, Al-Khatib has studied the effect of temperature and humidity on a small number of herbicide types and weed species. In the cases he has studied, he says, herbicide efficacy generally improves at higher temperature and humidity, unless temperatures exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
Matzrafi and Jugulam agree that the lab does not reflect the more complex farm environment.
“But I don't think it lessens the importance of the results,” Matzrafi wrote. He, Stahlman, and others say they have seen the effect in the field for themselves.
“I think we are seeing something. Over the next 10 years I think we will see more. It's going to be a major problem,” says Chuck Otte, a K-State Research and Extension agent in Geary County, Kansas, who primarily works with farmers.
The research findings are trying news for farmers who rely on herbicides to keep increasingly weaponized weeds at bay. For now, some farmers are striving to stave off some of the effects from heat by spraying herbicides during cooler periods of the day. In the heart of summer, Carie Moore says she sometimes wakes before dawn to spray her 650-acre farm in North Dakota before the heat climbs too high, occasionally topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit. But as the globe warms, farmers will face narrower windows during which temperatures are cool enough to spray, says Ziska. And Matzrafi's research suggests that spraying during cooler periods doesn't guarantee that herbicide efficacy isn't affected by bursts of heat that come later in the day or even the following day.
And sometimes farmers can't avoid spraying herbicides in the heat, particularly on huge farms with several thousand acres.
Otte says that skeptics might not realize their herbicides are not working because heat has given weeds a helping hand. They might first assume that an array of other common factors are at fault, such as herbicide resistance, lack of rainfall, or too little herbicide. “There are so many confounding factors it is difficult to sort it all out,” he says.
In the long-run, farmers will need to lessen their reliance on herbicides and instead use other techniques more often used in organic farming today to keep weeds at bay, many experts say. For example, planting cover crops such as spring oats or crimson clover helps stop weeds taking root in bare soil and growing a variety of crops in rotation can wrong-foot weeds helping to suppress populations. Moore is already moving in this direction. She rotates soybeans with wheat, barley, and a couple of other crops and plants a variety of additional cover crops including rye and peas.
She also occasionally tills the soil to help stifle weed growth. “The less we have to spray chemicals the better,” she says.
Yet, to keep up yields, farming can't entirely abandon herbicides, says Ziska. With very few new chemicals on offer, farmers will need to be more careful with the herbicides they have now to ensure they continue to work in the future. Manufacturers need to provide farmers with better advice on when and how to use herbicides, adds Matzrafi.
“Farmers can no longer just spray and pray,” says Otte.
***
Natasha Gilbert is a freelance reporter in Washington, D.C., who has spent over a decade covering the environment, agriculture, and sustainability.
Original source: Undark • Dec. 7, 2020
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- Author: Ben Faber
Katie Wollstein (Rangeland Fire Regional Specialist) and Jacob Powell (OSU Agricultural Extension Agent) are hosting a webinar on fire preparedness for farmers and ranchers. Please advertise in venues you feel appropriate. Specifics and registration information is in the attached flyer.
Brief overview:
Agricultural Wildfire Refresher Webinar, Wednesday, February 10th, noon to 1:30
This free webinar with OSU Extension will cover wildfire safety and prevention for agricultural operations and small landowners. The Lone Pine Rangeland Fire Protection Association and their partners will discuss their fire prevention plan. In addition, the webinar will feature a roundtable discussion with local fire managers in North Central Oregon on what producers should do when they have a wildfire and how they can collaborate with first responders in suppression efforts. This webinar is one option for producers to attend an annual agricultural wildfire refresher in 2021 to meet Oregon OSHA requirements for producers with employees who engage in fire suppression on their property. Certificates will be available for attendees. Additional requirements are for producers and employees to receive some sort of initial wildfire training, along with having an emergency action plan for medical and fire emergencies, fire prevention plan, and Job Hazard Analysis form. See attached the flyer and click on this link to register: https://beav.es/Jqy

- Author: Ben Faber
Avocado Laurel Wilt-Ambrosia Beetle (LW-AB) Workshop
Date: Feb. 11, 2021 (Thursday)
Time: 10:00AM-3:00PM (Eastern Standard Time) which is 7 AM to 12 PST
Venue: Zoom; attendance limited so register early.
You must register in advance for this meeting:
https://ufl.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwrde-uqjgoGtGqRC8dBHoNJ7In5vXvS75N
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Purpose and target audience:
- To offer updates of both basic and applied research on LW-AB to avocado producers, scientists, and other interested parties.
- To offer Florida avocado producers and others the opportunity to attend an on-line meeting focused on laurel wilt and ambrosia beetle vectors affecting avocado production.
Program Agenda (10AM-3PM max)
Speaker |
Title |
Time |
~Time |
Jeff Wasielewski |
Welcome, logistics and purpose |
10 min |
10:00-10:10AM |
Jonathan Crane |
Brief history and background on LW-AB avocado epidemic |
10 min |
10:10-10:20AM |
Jeffrey Rollins |
Insights into R. lauricola pathogenicity and colonization |
10 min |
10:20AM-10:30AM |
Daniel Carrillo |
Ambrosia beetle biology and management |
15 min |
10:30AM-10:55AM |
Octavio Menocal |
A case of plasticity in the symbiotic associations of Xyleborus bispinatus |
10 min |
10:55AM-11:05AM |
Q&A |
10 min |
11:05-11:15AM |
|
Romina Gazis |
Current and novel approaches for the control of Laurel Wilt |
15 min |
11:15AM-11:30AM |
Pedro Pablo Parra |
New diagnostic tools and their application in surveillance programs |
10 min |
11:30AM-11:40AM |
Bruce Schaffer |
Laurel wilt susceptibility of avocado rootstocks and scions in relation to physiology, stem anatomy and ecotype |
10 min |
11:40AM-11:50AM |
Fredy Ballen |
Economic impact of laurel wilt: looking back and forward |
10 min |
11:50AM-12:00PM |
Q&A |
10 min |
12:00PM-12:10PM |
|
LUNCH break |
60 min |
12:10PM-1:10PM |
|
Lukas Stelinski/Xavier Martini |
Pesticide alternatives for ambrosia beetle management: challenges and opportunities |
10 min |
1:10PM-1:20PM |
Kirsten Stelinski |
Ambrosia beetle microbial communities associated with R. lauricola |
10 min |
1:20PM-1:30PM |
Speaker panel – Q&A |
~30 min |
1:30PM-2:00PM |
|
Brainstorm on the way forward (grants, visiting scientists, etc.) |
~30 min |
2:00PM-2:30PM |
(OD/Extn/AB-LW new SCRI project/2020/meetings/LW-AB workshop 2021.docx)
Acknowledgment. This work was supported, in part, by NIFA grant 2015·51181-24257 (Laurel wilt of avocado: Management of an unusual and lethal disease).

- Author: Pam Kan-Rice
Growers considering producing avocados in San Diego County with high-density plantings now have help to determine the economic feasibility. A new study on the costs and returns of establishing and producing avocados in San Diego County has been released by UC Agriculture and Natural Resources' Cooperative Extension, UC Agricultural Issues Center and the UC Davis Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
Avocado has been one of the prominent crops produced in Southern California since the early 1950s. California avocado production peaked in 1987-88 with about 76,300 acres. San Diego had been the leading producer accounting for about 60% of the acreage.
“Beginning in the early 1980s, there has been a continuous decline of acreage and production of avocados in San Diego County, said Etaferahu Takele, UC Cooperative Extension farm management advisor for Southern California and co-author of the study. “This is mainly because of the expansion of urban development that has increased the cost of producing the crop and especially the cost of water, reaching to up to $2,000 per acre feet in 2020.”
High-density planting increases profitability of avocado production given there is suitable land for high-density orchard development.
Although the cost of water accounts for 44% of the total production cost in the high-density planting, the water cost is proportionally less than in the conventional planting of 145 trees per acre when distributed over a higher yield per acre, the authors write.
Their cost analysis describes production operations for avocados planted at 430 trees per acre, with an expected life span of 40 years. The study includes a detailed summary of costs and returns and a profitability analysis of gross margin, economic profit and a break-even ranging analysis table, which shows profits over a range of prices and yields. Growers can identify their gross margin and returns to management based on their yield and prices received.
Input and reviews were provided by a UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor and grower cooperators in San Diego County. The authors describe the assumptions used to identify current costs for avocado establishment and production, material inputs, cash and non-cash overhead.
The new study, “Avocado Establishment and Production Costs and Profitability Analysis in High Density Planting, San Diego County-2020,” can be downloaded for free from the UC Davis Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics website at http://coststudies.ucdavis.edu and UCCE Riverside County Farm Management website at https://ucanr.edu/sites/Farm_Management/Costs_and_Returns. Sample cost of production studies for many other commodities are also available on the websites.
For additional information or an explanation of the calculations used in the studies, refer to the “Assumptions” section of the report or contact Takele at (951) 683-6491 Ext. 243 or ettakele@ucanr.edu or Donald Stewart at the UC Agricultural Issues Center at destewart@ucdavis.edu.

- Author: Ben Faber
A moderate La Niña climate phase is expected through spring 2021. This indicates that slightly above average temperatures and slightly less rainfall than normal can be expected in California's avocado/lemon growing areas.
The fact that the winter weather pattern is expected to be warmer than usual doesn't rule out the possibility of a freeze. A freeze can occur any winter, regardless of the climate phase. And dry winters are often susceptible to sudden cold spells because of the lack of tempering effect of soil wet from winter rains
La Niña is one of three climate phases that are part of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate pattern. Others are El Niño, during which colder and wetter conditions are expected in California, and neutral, when conditions are neither El Niño nor La Niña.
California's most severe freezes have occurred in weak La Niña, weak El Niño or neutral ENSO phases. Severe freezes in Decembers of 1990, 1998, 2001 and 2006 occurred after droughty years and years of low rainfall. In 2015, it snowed in Temecula and again in 2020 – in February!!! So cold weather is still waiting out there.
The most damaging freezes for avocado and citrus are advection and radiation freezes. In advection freezes, cold fronts move arctic air through the region. Radiation freezes feature overnight clear skies and light to no winds with periods of calm. Cold pockets and cold locations will have lower temperatures during radiation freezes. Break freezes and unsettled freezes are the other types of freezes.
During a radiation freeze, cold air drains down and pools in low areas. Know the cold pockets in your grove, and keep that air flowing with a wind machine, if possible.
Read the collected works on frost protection, frost damage and frost recovery here:
https://www.californiaavocadogrowers.com/growing/cultural-management-library/freeze-protection
It's also a good idea to be ready for fires in years of low/no rainfall.
The 2021 Weather Forecast from Fox Weather provided by CAC is below:
Image: Temecula snow on avocados in February
