Managing the Seedbank by Plowing

Roundup has bred quite a few mutant weeds, such as marestail and ragweed that haven't yet made it to Georgia. But the king of mutant superweeds everywhere is Palmer Amaranth: pigweed.

About pigweed, Georgia Extension weed scientist Dr. Stanley Culpepper says:

Economic survival will depend on managing the seedbank!!!!

That's on page 30 of a 46 page presentation at the 2010 Beltwide – Consultants Conference, after discussing how rapidly Roundup-Ready seeds have been adopted:

And how the value of advice on weed control during that period rapidly decreased as a direct correlation:

In Georgia, cotton is basically entirely Roundup-Ready monoculture:

So, what to do?

Plow and plant winter cover crops. It works.

And apparently many Georgia cotton producers have been adopting these "new" practices since 2006:

Most. Not all. Yet.

-jsq

Comments

[Andrew A. Gill]

Wow. I'd forgotten just how bad Powerpoint really is.

[jsqrisk]

At least this one was posted with each page separately linkable, so it's possible to make extracts like this blog post.