Eradicating Pigweed

Prior to 1990, most pigweed management including tillage, herbicides, cultivation, and other steps. These practices worked fairly well at controlling pigweed in cotton crops. Fast-forward to the present day, most pigweed control is reliant on herbicides and is a common issue faced by cotton growers throughout the south as well as the midwest.

In a recent online webinar focused on cotton crop solutions, BASF representatives stress the importance of developing an eradication mindset when it comes to controlling pigweed.

"What would it mean and what we are trying to do with this eradication mindset, or focus on it, is really try to change the approach and say, "What would it mean if we can eradicate this from the farm?" Starting getting people to think about a multi-year plan, a multifaceted approach to doing it. Those last weeds might be the most costly. very naturally, those escaped seeds replace the seed bank. They just recharge it. They could also incident the start of a weed resistance problem."

The goal is to completely eradicated pigweed from the farm all together.

"Where we want to get to is where we've eradicated pigweed from the farm and have no escapes at all. Someone, who over the long term, had a very good herbicide program. There could be a number of different avenues to make sure they have an integrated, diverse weed program."