Early Season Weed Management

Baylee Jordan

 The onset of the 2023 planting season means now is the ideal time to get ahead of weed pressure and make the right strategic decisions to help mitigate weed emergence. If farmers work proactively before planting, it can be easier to manage weeds throughout the season. Here are three crucial steps to setting up your fields for success and proactively defending them from weeds this planting season.

 Firstly, it’s important to know that it is often less expensive to manage weeds early in the season than it is to try to manage them later. Being proactive and implementing early season weed management will pay off in the long run because you’ll have greater control of weeds before they potentially affect your yield. 

 Next, timing your herbicide application appropriately is key to a stronger weed management regimen. Spraying early and finding the correct herbicides to fit your situation — depending on location, weed type, label restrictions and crop tolerance — can provide better weed management all season long. Your local Channel Seedsman will be the best source to help you determine the most effective herbicide for your fields.

 Lastly, after your early season herbicide application has been made, it’s time to work with your Seedsman and local technical agronomist to scout your fields. As a part of the Channel^® Field Check Up Series, Channel Seedsmen visit farms throughout the year and provide advice and insights to improve operations. After planting and during the vegetative stage, your Seedsman will partner with you to evaluate nutrient needs as well as insect, weed and disease pressure; document progress in the Climate FieldView™ platform; look ahead by prioritizing fields and areas of concern; and deliver a Custom Crop Report. Working together throughout the year, your team at Channel will help you make a plan for continued postemergence weed control.

 As planting season gets underway in Kansas, farmers can consider these tips to enhance yield potential. This planting season has started out fast in much of Kansas. While emergence conditions look promising right now, the growing season is just getting started. Work with your local Channel Seedsman on scouting and assessing final plant stands, which are critical to ensuring enough plants are present to capture the yield potential of each field. 

 There are online tools available at Channel.com to help farmers evaluate the benefits of inputs, including a profitability calculator and a Population Optimizer tool. Using the recommendations from these tools and working with your Channel Seedsman can help maximize the potential of your Channel corn products. ∆

 BAYLEE JORDAN:Channel: Technical Agronomist