Spraying dispute question

Reid1650

Member
Pretty sure I got had on a pre emerge spray on a farm I have. Had the local Southern States spray it with "round up and sharpen" for pre emerge. The previous crop ground burnt down well but the 40 acres or so of grass that I was putting into production was only turning yellow a week and a half after spraying. Pretty sure it was just round up in the tank but how do I prove it and where do I go from here?
 
Sharpen wouldn't affect your grasses, so if you are saying the grasses died slow or poorly, it would not help to have Sharpen in the mix.

In very dry, slow growing conditions it is very common for glyphosate (Roundup) to not really affect the well-rooted grasses much. I sprayed a patch 5 years ago, to put corn in, the grass came back. It was very dry, and hot, the cool-season grass was basically dormant and the glyphosate only killed 30-50% of it. It was a wet part of the farm, I still make hay off it, can't tell I ever sprayed it by the next year already, grass filled right back in. Typically glyphosate is an excellent grass killer, but a good sod type grass you can run into situations it won't take it out.

I don't know what crop you were planting or when you sprayed. You can send in samples of your weeds to a testing lab, probably your soils testing lab would handle this. If this happened in spring and you are looking into it now, then it might be kinda tough.

--->Paul
 
Something to try the next time you need to burn down sod is spray with glyphosate at full label rate then when the grass starts to yellow spray it with gramaxone. The gramaxone is a dessicant that requires the best possible coverage and will fry the tops off and stop photosynthesis so the grass can't metabolize the glyphosate. It is my preferred method of killing off alfalfa or clover stands as well. A little spendy but has never failed me yet.
 
If it was hot when sprayed then the plants shut down and didn't take it all in. Also look at your bill to see is AMS or a surfactant was used in the mix. This year especially it should have been. Monsanto says its not needed and the coops don't want to add another step but to make roundup work anymore it must be done. My 2 cents
 
ihman73....can you explain what you mean by "the grass can't metabolize the glyphosate"? Is this a process that reduces the effectiveness of the roundup?
 
There is some level of toxic that doesn't kill, it harms but theplant (or animal or fungus or whatever) can deal with the poison and live through it all.

And so as you say, he is discussing the level that harms, but doesn't kill a plant.

Roundup is really good at just a little really working over a plant; but it also is only effecting a very short time after application. If it is terrible hot, terrible dry, so the plant is not actively growing;

And if the plant is hardened up by being old, setting seed, waxy, or otherwise so the Roundup doesn't penetrate in to the plant itself;

And if the water used is very hard water, or dirty with clay particles in it, or otherwise poor water;

And of no AMS (only need 3# per acre) and/or surficant (to eat through the wax) is added to some of the cheaper formulations;

Then the plant can deal with the very low dose of Roundup that it gets.

In normal weather, with younger plants, Roundup works so well you can fudge on all that stuff and it still will kill all the grasses.

But this year - the plant might have gotten such a low actual dose into it's veins, it only weakened it, didn't kill it.

--->Paul
 
I wouldn't be worried about it not dying until at least 2 weeks after it was sprayed, maybe even 17 days with the weather we've had. Sharpen does nothing for grass. Also, depending on the grass, one shot of roundup may not work. Brome, for example, is very hard to kill. Timing is everything, and it takes a lot of roundup. Even more generic.
 
Glyphosate is a systemic herbicide as you probably know, which requires the grass to absorb the chemical to be effective. The problem with this is the grass can detox if you will the glyphosate before it can overwhelm its ability to so via photosynthesis. By using gramaxone (paraquat) to dessicate the above ground foliage it can no longer try to metabolize it from its system. The premise is if you just fry the top, it grows back. If you use glyphosate alone, in favorable growing conditions it can outgrow it. combine the two and you get dead grass.
 

We sell tractor parts! We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today.

Back
Top