Weed control gets easier! K-State develops a herbicide-resistant hybrid
12:17 p.m. Wednesday, September 10, 2008
An herbicide-resistant sorghum has been developed at K-State, that will allow producers to use a variety of popular post-emergence herbicides on weedy fields. Kassim Al-Khatib, an agronomy researcher at Kansas State University, says it’s important that new sorghum varieties don’t restrict producers to a single herbicide.
“If you use the same mode of action, you’re going to end up with herbicide-resistant weeds. If you have two herbicides that have different modes of action, then you can use these two different herbicides on the sorghum, and delay the resistant weeds from developing," Al-Khatib said. "Yes, we do have some weeds that can survive this treatment, and that’s what we’re doing with this work, how we can optimize this technology.”
Al-Khatib says producers will have to wait to plant these new hybrids, but they won’t have to wait very long.
“We think that we can have this technology in the farmer’s hand by 2011. The K-State approach is to get this technology on as many acres as possible, and in as many hands as possible, and with that we licensed this technology to most seed companies,” he said.
You can find more information at your local extension office, or on our web site, at http: KStateAgToday.org.
Post a comment
(Requires free registration.)