MSU Weeds.com Blog

If you are attending this year’s North Central Weed Science Society meeting in Indianapolis, IN this December, we would like to invite you to the symposium titled “Integrated Weed Management Strategies: Tools of the Trade” .  This symposium is currently scheduled for the afternoon of Wednesday, December 10.  The symposium will be the introduction to the sequel to the Michigan State University bulletin E-2931 Integrated Weed Management “One Year’s Seeding…..”.  There will be several well known speakers that will be covering the following topics and how they affect weed management.

1) Diverse Crop Rotations and Weed Management
2) Cover Crop Innovations
3) Manure and other N sources: Solids, Liquids, and Storage
4) Compost and Weed Management
5) Hot Hot Heat: Flaming for Weed Management
6) Grazing as a Biological Weed Control

Why should you attend?
1)  You will receive a free copy of the Sequel publication of the MSU bulletin “Integrated Weed Management” that will be hot off the presses.This publication will contain information on the topics discussed in the symposium, as well as, information on economic thresholds, on-farm trials, and new weed profiles.
2)  You will be learning about the latest and most up-to-date information on these topics
3)  Information presented in this symposium will be useful in extension programming and teaching integrated weed management courses
4)  This symposium will be interactive with lots of opportunities for discussion and questions

Congratulations to the MSU graduate and undergraduate students who participated in the 2008 Weeds Contest held in Carlyle, IL at the Alvey Ag Research farm. The teams took home a total of 7 awards! One team (consisting of Joe Armstrong, Kelly Barnett, Stephanie Smith, and Cal Glaspie) finished 2nd place overall in the graduate team competition. Individuals winning awards include:

• Chad Hermann- 1st place graduate sprayer calibration
• Molly Buckham- 1st place undergraduate overall and unknown herbicide
• Cal Glaspie- 1st place undergraduate weed identificaton and sprayer calibration and 3rd place undergraduate overall 

-Erin Taylor

This week I had the pleasure of traveling ~50 miles west of Chicago to visit Lily Lake Organic Farm in Maple Park, IL. This farm has been growing corn, hay, soybeans, wheat, oats, etc. organically for over 20 years! My interest in visiting was to learn more about integrating cover crops into field crop systems to include in our forth coming extension bulletin. Since the farm started they have used cover crops such as clovers, buckwheat, hairy vetch, rye, sorghum-sudangrass, chickling vetch, cowpea, oats, etc to combat weeds, improve soil quality, increase available nutrients, and reduce erosion.  

The following day I headed southwest to the Allison Organic Farm at Western Illinois University. This 80 acre farm has also been organic for over 20 years. The field day featured key note speaker Gary Reding from Langeland Farms in Greensburg, IN, a panel discussion with three growers who farm both conventionally and organically, CropCam and Omnistar HP demonstrations, and a field tour of WIU organic research lead by Dr. Joel Gruver and Andrew Clayton. 

-Joe Armstrong

Christy Sprague, Gary Powell, and I recently returned from the 2008 Sugar Beet Research Tour hosted by the Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative in Rennville, July 31-August 2. Sugar beet researchers and agronomists from the US and Canada had the opportunity to tour research plots (weed control, disease control, soil fertility, variety trials), production fields, and the SMBSC piling grounds.

Many thanks to Mark Bredehoeft and his colleagues at SMBSC for hosting a great tour!

View photos from the 2008 MSU Crop Diagnostic School. Clicking on an image opens the gallery where you can further enlarge photos with one click.