Combines Weeds

[560]

I would not recommend spraying Roundup on the wheat. I am speaking from first hand experience. 2 years ago I had heavy weed pressure in some areas of a wheat field so I applied Roundup very close to harvest(less then 2 weeks) to some of the areas to see what would happen. The Roundup severely hurt yield,test weight,etc. I can not think of chemical product you can spray on the wheat that is legal or will not hurt the wheat this close to harvest.

 

[CORNKING]

We spray all our wheat with round up usually about 1 week before we harvest. Been doing it for 3 years now. last year all my neihbors did the same, does not hurt yeild actually I think it helps because its all dry going thru the combine no feild loss when it is dry versus green heads threw the low spots. last year wheat yeilded 62 to 73 bu per acre weighed. If you dont beleive it, just try a few acres that way and next year you will do it all. Good luck F.R.

 

[Chuckm]

The only "Non-Chemical" way that I am aware of is to treat it like Canola or something. Swath swith a draper header and then use a pickup header. The weeds will dry down and go right through the machine without plugging the concaves. We did this one year about 15 years ago on 200 acres and it worked fairly well. I do remember that you have to be careful with the timing of when to swath, here is an quote from a web page: ******************************************** "There are six developmental stages that occur after flowering in small grains: watery stage, milk stage, soft dough stage, hard dough stage, kernel hard stage, and harvest ripe. The names of each of these stages are sufficiently descriptive that they need not be described. Hard dough is the stage in small grains when physiological maturity is reached, and occurs at 30 - 32 percent moisture. Once physiological maturity has been reached the crop will not assimilate additional dry matter into the kernel. When swathing wheat or barley to facilitate drying and hasten harvest, it should be done at or after the hard dough stage. Swathing before this stage will reduce yield and result in shriveled kernels ******************************************** With Pre-Harvest round-up available now, I would be tempted to go that way. Chuck

 

[farmert]

I'm not a wheat guy but what about Gramoxone they spray all the beans in brazil with it and I've seena lot of weedy beans sprayed with it my $.02

 

[Case_Farmer]

I agree...i don't tihnk its the best thing to do if so i guess a week before harvest but have fun planning that out also doesn't sound like there makeing roundup ready wheat if i remember correctly so you might be out of luck

 

[CAJUN__BOY]

Is salting wheat labled (sodium chlorate) some use it on rice down here where they won't second crop, they spray it wait 72hrs and harvest just a thought!

 

[Idea]

Don't do this! I remember a few years back some farmers in central Kansas sprayed Gramoxone (Paraquat) on some wheat preharvest. They had to condem a bin of wheat at the elevator as a result. I don't know who paid the bills, but it was big enought to bankrupt most farmers. This is definitly off label and illegal.

 

[560]

The 1 week difference in spraying time could have certainly been the reason Roundup dinged the wheat so bad for me. I was trying to put the hurt on lampsquarters which take a while to die with Roundup, especially the bigger ones. I will add though the wheat was really turned when I sprayed, there's a mighty small line between when you can spray with no injury. I do not have enough experience to know when to spray or not. The lesson I learned was proper crop scouting. If I would have scouted the field earlier the problem would not have happened.

 

[Moki]

Thank you all for the suggestions. I will weigh it all and decide if and when.... One of the questions that came to me this morning is about how much grain gets run down and how much gets knocked off by the sprayer booms. Any thoughtsIJ

 

[CORNKING]

The booms will not knock any thing down and the tracs are as wide as your tires. In my case I use a Patriot with 11" tires and 90ft boom. Much beter than swathing it and having it rain and rain till it starts to sprount in the swath, been there done that, then we use to take it straight and dry it but with the cost of propane we found it was cheaper to spray than dry or swath. All of my spring wheat went for milling quality with 13.8 protein and 63 lb test wt. like I said before at least try some then you make up your own mind. I spray mine with clearout R.U. at 24oz cost of chemical is less than $3.00 per acre. We spray about 500 acres of wheat per year so if it didnt work I would not waste money on it. Hope this helps. F.R.