WEED OF THE WEEK: QUICK KEYS TO CONTROL*
 
Usually found in field borders. Fall is the best time to control bromegrass.
In corn: Accent**

In soybeans: Poast Plus**, Select**, or Fusion**
** Suppression only. Use Roundup or Touchdown to completely kill bromegrass, roots and all.

*Please read transcript below for further explanation of recommendations, or call 1-800-274-3389 (Mon-Fri. 8am-5pm CT, Sat. 8am-12noon CT) with any questions.

WEED OF THE WEEK - BROMEGRASS
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B: Our weed of the week is a tough perennial grass. It's bromegrass. Although nearly every farm in South Dakota has some, to identify it you need to take a closer look.
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D: Bromegrass has a membranous ligule that is somewhat pointed or jagged, and it has a round stem. The leaves have prominent veins. They are normally hairy on the top side and hairless on the under side. And the leaves have one other distinguishing characteristic. Bromegrass leaves have a "w" or "m" marking on them. If you look close enough, you will find this on every bromegrass leaf. This is probably the easiest way to identify bromegrass.
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B: To identify any perennial weed, you need to look at the root system. Bromegrass is a perennial weed, and it has rhizomes attached to its roots. That means that a bromegrass patch may have spread from the rhizomes of just one plant.
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D: What that tells us as farmers is that you can not control bromegrass or any other perennial weed by tillage successfully. All you will do is break up the root system and several plants will shoot up from the pieces of rhizomes you have chopped up in the soil.
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B: So tillage doesn't work. That leaves us with herbicides, and, unfortunately, there aren't very many choices that are effective. There are really only two herbicides that will effectively control bromegrass: Roundup and Touchdown.
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D: Since bromegrass is a perennial weed with rhizomes, the only way to take it out for good is to kill it roots and all. The only two products that will translocate down into the roots effectively are Roundup and Touchdown. And the bad thing with them is that it takes quite a bit of product to do the job.
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B: Consult the product labels for specific recommendations on use rates to control bromegrass. This is a little bit tricky since both Roundup and Touchdown have changed their formulations since last year. The old Roundup Ultra is labeled for bromegrass control at two quarts per acre. The new Roundup UltraMaxx is more concentrated and can control bromegrass at a rate of just 1.6 quarts. We used to use Touchdown at a rate about eighty percent of the Roundup Ultra rate which in this case would be 1.6 quarts. The new formulation of Touchdown is used at the same rate as the old Roundup Ultra, 2 quarts, to control bromegrass. Kind of confusing, isn't it?
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D: The timing of when to spray bromegrass can be a little tricky too. Bromegrass is a cool season grass. That means that it will not be easy to control in the summer. The best time of the year to control bromegrass is in the fall.
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B: Fall is best for a couple of reasons. First of all, for good control on perennial weeds, you need to spray them just before the first killing frost. That's when they are sending nutrients down to the root system to store for the winter. They will send the chemical down to the roots at this time, also.
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D: Fall is also a good time to spray cool season weeds because they do not grow very well during the hot summer months. They also do not take in herbicides very quickly in the hot months because the plants are shut down to a certain degree to avoid moisture loss. In the fall, it is generally cooler at nights, and the plants adjust and begin to open up again. At this point, you can get cool season weeds to take herbicides in again. One other reason fall control is best is because perennial weeds take in a lot of moisture and nutrients. Killing them in the fall is just that much less time for the weeds to be taking food away from our crops.
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B: The good thing about trying to control bromegrass is that you usually do not have to control it across a whole field. Where we seem to have the most problems is around the field borders. We go around our field borders each year spraying products like Accent in corn, or Poast, Fusion, or Select in soybeans. We do not get control like you would with Roundup Ultra or Touchdown, but we can burn back the bromegrass enough that we don't see much competition from it that growing season.
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D: The other place we are fighting bromegrass is in the ground that is coming out of the CRP program and old alfalfa stands. In those situations, we like to use a fall burndown before the first killing frost to kill perennial grasses like bromegrass.
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B: While bromegrass may make good hay and livestock feed, you don't want it to creep into your cropland.
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D: Burn back bromegrass on the edges of your field with Accent in corn, or Poast Plus, Select, or Fusion in the beans.
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B: Use Roundup or Touchdown to completely kill bromegrass roots and all.