By:  Christine Gelley, Agriculture and Natural Resources Educator, Noble County OSU Extension

Poison hemlock is a concern in public right of ways, on the farm, and in the landscape!

Poison hemlock has already emerged in a vegetative state around Noble County and beyond. Soon it will be bolting and blooming on stalks 6-10 feet tall. All parts of the plant are toxic to all classes of livestock if consumed and is prevalent along roadsides, ditches, and crop field borders. It is a biennial weed that does not flower in the first year of growth but flowers in the second year. The earlier you can address poison hemlock with mowing and/or herbicide application, the better your control methods will be. Continue reading →

By:  Erdal Ozkan

Whenever I give a presentation about the need to calibrate a sprayer and how to do it, there is always someone asking me this same question: “I have a rate controller in the cab that regulates the flow rate of the sprayer regardless of the changes in sprayer ground speed. I just enter the gallons per acre application rate, and the controller does the rest, just like a cruise control in a car. So, should I still calibrate the sprayer? The answer is, Yes, a calibration should be done. Although the rate controllers do an excellent job with regulating the flow rate of nozzles to keep the application rate constant regardless of the changes in travel speed, a manual calibration at least once a year is needed for two reasons: 1) to ensure the rate controller is functioning properly, 2) the rate controller is not forced to operate outside the pressure operating range for the nozzles on the sprayer boom. Let me elaborate on both points I made and share with you the reasons why a manual calibration of a sprayer is a good idea. Continue reading →

By:  Mark Loux

Note:  This is a repeat (mostly) of an article that ran in C.O.R.N. last November.  It represents the combined thinking of weed scientists from Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania

There is a lot of speculation about herbicide shortages for the 2022 growing season, and some products are apparently getting more expensive and/or scarce now.  This will affect herbicide buying and weed management decisions for the 2022 season.  The two main active ingredients that we’re hearing about right now are glyphosate (Roundup, others) and glufosinate (Liberty, others), for which prices have increased substantially.  There will likely be limited supplies of other pesticide active ingredients as well, but in the short term, a shortage of these two active ingredients poses some major challenges for corn and soybean production. The purpose of this article is to discuss ways to minimize the impact of herbicide shortages, primarily glyphosate, on corn and soybean production. As you search for alternatives to these two herbicides and others, the weed control guides and technical guides produced by University Extension and industry are an important tool for planning weed management programs and herbicide purchases. Links to the university publications are at the end of this article.  Feel free to contact us also when trying to sort through options (loux.1@osu.edu). Continue reading →

This high-impact program is designed for producers wanting to be on the “Cutting Edge” of crop production for their operations. Topics Include: Local Weed Populations and Late Season Weed Issues; Hot Topics in Weed Control; Weed Biology and Control Strategies; Cover Crop Management in Forages; and Evaluating Your Herbicide Program. Hands-on activities include Weed identification utilizing live plants at various growth stages; Nozzle selection and calibration utilizing a spray table; and Tank mixing order for different products.  Featured Ohio State University speakers include Dr. Mark Loux, Alyssa Essman and various Extension Educators.

Program will be held on February 3 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the OSU Extension Paulding County Office. Registration information can be found at https://u.osu.edu/knoxcountyag/2022/01/03/ohio-weed-university/

By:  Bill Johnson and Marcelo Zimmer, Purdue University

Note:  This article represents the combined thinking of weed scientists from Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania

There is a lot of speculation about herbicide shortages for the 2022 growing season, and some products are apparently getting more expensive and/or scarce now.  This will affect herbicide buying and weed management decisions for the 2022 season.  The two main active ingredients that we’re hearing about right now are glyphosate (Roundup, others) and glufosinate (Liberty, others), for which prices have increased substantially.  There will likely be limited supplies of other pesticide active ingredients as well, but in the short term, a shortage of these two active ingredients poses some major challenges for corn and soybean production. The purpose of this article is to discuss ways to minimize the impact of herbicide shortages, primarily glyphosate, on corn and soybean production. As you search for alternatives to these two herbicides and others, the weed control guides and technical guides produced by University Extension and industry are an important tool for planning weed management programs and herbicide purchases. Links to the university publications are at the end of this article. Continue reading →

By:  Mark Loux, Ted Wiseman, and Allen Gahler

Poison hemlock seems to be on everyone’s radar more than usual this year, especially in northern Ohio.  We know that while hemlock has been all over southern Ohio for years, it is continuing to spread northward, where new occurrences and observations of it may be engendering concern in the general public and local government. There have also been comments that it seems “worse than usual” this year in some areas, and we don’t have a ready explanation for what would cause this.  Continue reading →

Gypsy moth larvae (caterpillars) in the 4th-6th instars have 5 pairs of blue spots followed by 6 pairs of red spots. Photo credit: Amy Stone, OSU Extension Lucas County.

Our office has received multiple reports of gypsy moth in the past two weeks from Williams County landowners. This invasive pest is currently in the larval (caterpillar) stage of its life cycle, and can be seen feeding on the leaves of various tree and shrub species, especially oak trees. At this point in the year, gypsy moth is difficult to manage and efforts should shift to scouting for pupa, or the next stage of the life cycle that transforms larvae into moths. Continue reading →

By:  Mark Loux

It can be nice to see old friends.  Except when they cause crop and yield loss, refuse to leave after a few days, and don’t respond to chemicals.  A while back we wrote about what appeared to be an increase in populations of dandelions and other winter weeds and made some guesses about why this was happening.  Canada thistle has once again become a problem in some fields in a big way, probably for some of the same reasons that dandelion has.  Our history with thistle during the past 30+ years is that it was a major problem before the widespread adoption of RoundupReady soybeans in the late 1990s.  Back then we had to take advantage of specific windows in the cropping cycle to try to get control with glyphosate, and the rest of the time we just tried to keep it from getting worse.  The “all glyphosate, all the time” strategy during the first decade of RoundupReady soybeans handled thistle and other perennials such as milkweed and hemp dogbane well, and we didn’t hear much about them.  Now we are though, and increases in thistle could be due to the following: Continue reading →