It’s that time of year when black-grass plagues the fields and lowers the yields for thousands of farmers across the UK. Here are some tips from Hutchinsons, on how to deal with black-grass on your fields.
- We must have a zero tolerance to this weed.
- If there are too many plants to rogue by hand, spray the patch off with glyphosate.
- Make sure the whole plant is removed and destroyed.
- Any grower who now has large populations of black-grass, which is difficult and expensive to control, wishes they had done more roguing and patch spraying years ago.
- Once flowering finishes the seed can be viable.
- Where plants are seen it is usually due to seed/ soil coming in on machinery, often on the headland to the left or right of the gateway.
- The black-grass plants you see may be only 5% of the seed which could potentially germinate.
- Cultural control is better in the first instance than trying to remove it with sprays in a growing crop, and is often a lot cheaper.
Source: Hutchinsons
