Hager, Bernards discuss weeds building herbicide resistance
MACOMB — On Thursday, Aaron Hager delivered his keynote “The Infallible Solution for Herbicide Resistant Weeds” during Western Illinois University’s Agronomy Day at the WIU Farm.
Hager, an associate professor of crop sciences at the University of Illinois, shared his 2018 research on the effects of herbicides on waterhemp. Hager believes that waterhemp became resistant to herbicides because it has developed genes that can metabolize herbicides, making them ineffective.
In order to test that theory, Hager used four different herbicides: metolachlor, acetochlor, dimethenamid and pyroxasulfone on waterhemp that grew in three different counties: Champaign, Adams and McLean. Hager used the herbicides on waterhemp in the different counties due to the genetic variance in waterhemp that are shown in between counties.
Hager’s research indicated waterhemp growing in Adams County requires a lot of herbicides to kill it. Mark Bernards, associate professor of agronomy at WIU, said the best way to get rid of waterhemp in McDonough County is to pull it out of the ground or to change up the herbicides so the plant cannot build up a resistance to it.
After Hager gave his remarks, Bernards lead a tour of the 2019 agronomy field research, where different herbicides were tested in both corn and soybean fields. During the tour, Bernards talked about the results recorded in the agronomy field day booklet so the participants could get a better understanding of what was going on.
Bernards said during the tour that he came across two different problems during this year’s research: the weather and deer. The weather, which was recorded in the agronomy field day booklet, showed a lot of rain in May, which affected the planting season.
“It has been a rough year for plants,” he said.
Deer were using the soybean crops as food, Bernards said. However, he found out in the field where he used cover crops as weed control, that deer would not eat soybeans that were planted with rye as the cover crop.
“I would rather deal with dicamba than with deer,” he said.