An extension agronomist says the discovery of glufosinate-resistant waterhemp in the U.S. didn’t come as a surprise.
Meaghan Anderson is with Iowa State University and says, “I think we all know that we’ve been on borrowed time here with some of these herbicides as we’ve been continuing to tick off effective sites of action. We put more and more pressure on the sites of action that are left that didn’t have resistance identified in them yet.”
The cases were recently confirmed in Illinois, according to Dr. Aaron Hager, weed scientist at the University of Illinois. Hager said there was resistance to Liberty, Liberty Ultra, and Interline in four populations of waterhemp in the state.
Anderson tells Brownfield growers need to be more cautious when developing their herbicide management plans.
“It’s just a good emphasis that just because it’s in Illinois doesn’t mean it’s not in Iowa,” she said. “It means we need to be very careful about how we use our herbicides. We need to really focus on how we can limit, especially waterhemp, but a whole host of weed species.”
Anderson says waterhemp continues to be one of the challenging weeds to manage, and adds it can cause significant yield loss in many cases.
