With longer days and warmer temperatures, daily spring pasture growth rates will soon be hitting their peak. There is only one drawback to this – many of your farmers most problematic broadleaf weeds flourish equally well in these conditions.
That is why a well-timed spring herbicide programme is often time and money well spent at this stage of the season – it can not only enhance pasture dry matter (DM) harvest for months to come, but can also help prolong pasture persistence. Such applications often come with a surprisingly fast payback.
Spring germinating weeds can catch farmers by surprise because they hide under pasture covers as seedlings and small plants before rapidly taking off after grazing exposes them to sunlight. “If they are left until they mature in most cases it is too late. They will be very difficult if not impossible to kill.”
Searching for such weeds early is the first pillar of good control, and the second is making sure all of the ones present are accurately identified. Reliable options for keeping established pastures thick and healthy include Baton® 800WSG, Sprinter® 700DS and Valdo® 800WG. They are specifically designed to kill broadleaf weeds while the plants are still small.
Dockstar® is another useful option, where docks are the main challenge. However, in many cases farmers want to eliminate other broadleaf weeds along with dock. In which case, tank mixing a lower rate of Dockstar (2L/ha) with either Baton 800WSG at 2kg/ha or Sprinter 700DS at 2.3L/ha will provide good control of docks and other broadleaf weeds with less pasture suppression than Dockstar alone at the full label rate.
You can quantify this for farmers using our Grassmanship App (grassmanship.nz), a free online tool which allows you to compare the net return on investment per ha from different weed control scenarios. This means farmers are getting the best out of their pastures all year round.
For more advice on encouraging thick, healthy pastures this spring, talk to us today or visit the app.
Joe Heng
Territory Manager – Northland & Auckland