03/30/07 Volunteer spuds in beet fields

A University of Idaho weed scientist says that farmers may be unintentionally growing hundreds of sacks of potatoes while they`re raising sugarbeets. Don Morishita found many small, leftover potatoes from the previous year`s harvest would sprout among the current sugarbeet crop. MORISHITA "In our lowest densities of volunteers in the beets which is twelve plants per hundred feet of row we saw like a 25 percent yield reduction." In some cases the reduction was as high as 61 percent. Currently registered sugarbeet herbicides have little effect on volunteer potatoes. What's the best way to rid a field of the volunteer spuds? Hand remove or hoeing is still the most effective way but timing is everything. MORISHITA "Just as the plant starts to make tubers if you go in and 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." Wait too long Morishita says and there's a yield reduction. He'll be repeating the removal timing experiments again this year. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott