Rare start at Riverina

But the warm start has also meant weeds in pastures, plus post-emergent weeds now need more attention, says Lockhart agronomist Warwick Nightingale.

“The break enabled growers to get one or two knock downs prior to putting their crop in, which really reduces the pressure on our pre-emergent and post-emergent herbicides,” said Mr Nightingale, of Delta Agribusiness.

However, while farmers were racing to get the crop in, weeds took off in pastures, he said.

Post-emergents are now being applied to all crops and pastures to curb weed growth.

“There has particularly been heavy weed pressure in pastures and that’s going to be difficult to manage,” he said.

“Pastures can often be on the tail end of the cropping activity and by the time growers are finished assessing their pasture weed control a lot of those weeds are well established and they’ll be quite difficult to control.

“By the time farmers get back to them – because it was such an early break – a lot of those weeds are going to be quite advanced.”

Mr Nightingale said the temperature had added other targets to the list alongside the usual capeweed, erodium and shepherd’s purse.

“With warmer temperatures we’ve seen weeds like prickly lettuce, fleabane and milk thistle; those types of weeds favour germination with soil temperatures like we’ve seen this year,” he said.

“Another thing we have to look out for is wild oats, we’re starting to see some resistance to herbicides. In wheat paddocks we have options with using different herbicides, but that’s something that’s coming up.”

With resistance a growing issue among weeds like wild oats and rye grass, the pre-emergent spray in the cropping cycle becomes all the more important.

“Given the resistance, pre-emergents are probably more important with products like Sakura in wheat and Boxer Gold in wheat and barley offering a greater level of ryegrass activity,” Mr Nightingale said.

Lockhart grower Sandy Day, “Quamby”, has been able to minimise post-emergent sprays this cropping season due to a good pre-emergent hit.

He planted 900 hectares of canola, 600ha of wheat, 60ha of vetch and 260ha of barley.

“Most years we start off dry and have to fight it, but this year we’ve saved a lot of money and time spent on tractors,” said Mr Day.

This time of year growers were cleaning up grasses and would soon spray fungicides.

“We’ll hold off on that as long as possible. Canola crops will be sprayed shortly and cereals in four to six weeks,” he said.