Lost In The Weeds?

The following commentary does not necessarily reflect the views of AgWeb or Farm Journal. The opinions expressed below are the author's own.

Over the past couple of weeks, I was working on a story about organic production, and the challenges farmers face as they transition to organic and manage their production to stay in compliance. One of the topics that dominated the discussion of the challenges: weed control.

Earlier this summer, we reported two stories that caused a good bit of buzz about weed control: an update on dicamba damage reports and the confirmation of six-way resistant waterhemp.

So my mind has been a bit lost to the weeds. And I’ve been thinking, what does weed control in the future look like?

Last year, my colleague reported these updates to the coming options for weed control in light of spreading resistance. And no doubt, farmers need new tools to tackle weeds.

Another avenue will be technology. It’s intriguing to watch reengineered approaches to herbicide application such as Blue River’s See and Spray and Rantizo’s electrostatic spraying.

For the organic grower, a focus on seed selection for plants that canopy early and of course cultivation are the primary modes of weed control.

The future looks like a mix of proactive measures and control agents applied with precision. And the future doesn’t look that far away.

Here’s a recent conversation I had with AgriTalk host Chip Flory on the topic: