02/05/07 Volunteer spuds cause problems

For decades, Idaho`s sugarbeet growers have been rotating their crops with potatoes. Now, a University of Idaho weed scientist says they may be unintentionally growing as many as 211 sacks of potatoes while they`re raising sugarbeets. Don Morishita found many small, leftover potatoes from the previous year`s harvest can sprout among the current year`s sugarbeets thereby reducing sugarbeet root yields by 25 percent and in some cases up to 61 percent. MORISHITA "We've done this two years in a row now and came up to that same amount each time." Currently registered sugarbeet herbicides have little effect on volunteer potatoes. What's the best way to rid a field of the volunteer spuds? MORISHITA "Hand remove or hoeing is still the most effective way of controlling volunteers." Morishita's experiments at Kimberly show that timing is critical for volunteer potato removal. MORISHITA "At tuber initiation or right after tuber initiation so just as the plant starts to make tubers if you go in an hoe them you have the least amount of regrowth as opposed to taking them out earlier than that. If you take them out earlier you get enough regrowth that those potatoes that regrow are able to still reduce the yield of the beets." He'll be repeating the removal timing experiments again this year. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott