Rotate crops and pastures
Crop and pasture rotation is the recipe for diversity
Weeds love predictable rotations. They find it easy to evolve resistance to herbicides when they are used in a predictable manner. If we mix it up a bit, the weeds get confused and find it harder to adapt to the farming system.
As well as confusing the weeds, diverse crop and pasture systems increase the range of weed control options that we have up our sleeve. For example, a pasture phase includes grazing animals and the ability to spray top the pasture. And what is better than rotating to a break crop? Rotating to a double break crop. Two break crops in a row is a great way of smashing the weed seed bank, setting the paddock up for a long crop phase.
The key takeaways:
- Use break crops and double break crops, fallow, and pasture phases to drive the weed seed bank down.
- In summer cropping systems, use diverse rotations of crops including cereals, pulses, cotton, oilseed crops, millets and fallows.
- Add greater diversity to weed management strategies by adopting herbicide tolerance traits.