Herbicide Screening for Ten Forage Seed Grass and Legume crops grown in their establishment year, 2013
Weed control is critical in the establishment year for forages grown for seed production. With that in mind we initiated a research trial to identify herbicide options that provide adequate weed control while posing acceptable risk of crop damage for selected forage species where suitable weed control treatments do not currently exist. These species include grasses; hybrid brome, timothy, perennial ryegrass, slender wheatgrass and tall fescue as well as forage legumes; red clover, alsike clover, sweet clover, cicer milkvetch and birdsfoot trefoil.
A secondary objective was to provide data on herbicide tolerance that can be used to support minor use registrations for herbicides found to have acceptable crop tolerance. Despite rather intense weed competition in the 2013 trials we were able to identify numerous potential crop – herbicide combinations that held potential for minor use registration on nine of the ten forage species evaluated.