Take out your frustrations on pigweed

Farmers really don’t have a proverbial “slow time” anymore. I remember a time while working on my grandfather’s cotton farm that once we had our crops “laid by” it was time to hit the lake, cool off in the mountains or head to the beach and take it easy. Life seemed much simpler then as sporadic “popcorn showers” or the occasional tropical storm would irrigate our crops for us throughout the remainder of the season. Nowadays we are constantly battling poly pipe, center pivots and irrigation motors trying to keep water flowing on our thirsty crops. Irrigating crops is indeed a way of life now for many producers in the Mid-South. I will talk more about irrigation in the next few weeks.

There is, however, another issue that should be addressed during this time of year and that is weeds. Darrin Dodds touched on this subject a few weeks back but it bears repeating again. Now is a good time to remove any weeds from field borders and edges to prevent seed production. DO NOT SPRAY MORE GLYPHOSATE!! I know that spraying weeds is easier but this is a wonderful opportunity to incorporate a non-chemical means of weed control. Mow, disk, plow, drag, chop or pull every pigweed or suspect weed you have from around your fields. Most of your men will have a hoe or shovel in their hands as they check irrigation so put it to good use cleaning up weeds.

Hopefully we will get a good rain soon and the stress factor will go down but for now take out your frustrations on the weeds around your fields.

Just one pigweed plant can produce millions of seed