- Author: Konrad Mathesius
- Contributor: Thomas Getts
- Contributor: José Luiz Carvalho de Souza Dias
- Editor: Brad Hanson
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Concerns about a growing resistance to herbicides
In Mediterranean or arid climates, particularly in areas with marginal soils, crop rotations are often limited to a narrow range of hay, pasture, a handful of winter legumes, or rainy-season grasses. Arid conditions and weathered soils drove Australia's rainfed grain growers to adopt no-till strategies earlier than their counterparts in California. While beneficial from a water use perspective, successful no-till systems depend on herbicides to control weeds that were traditionally kept in check with tillage.
Dependence on herbicides alone in these systems has resulted in weeds with resistance to multiple modes of action. In Australia, there is one...
- Author: Konrad Mathesius
Summary Note
Mechanical cultivation is a useful tool in controlling herbicide-resistant Italian ryegrass individuals in a rainfed wheat system but is only about half as effective as Axial in reducing overall pressure from Italian ryegrass (expressed as a percentage of total groundcover). Growers should consider multiple approaches (chemical and mechanical) and integrate IPM strategies to reduce the spread of resistance among Italian ryegrass individuals.
Background
Italian ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum) has been shown to be a persistent weed for growers in rainfed winter grass...