Managing a medium rainfall zone weed burden in a low rainfall zone yield environment is no easy matter and requires some out of the box thinking.
Subscribe now for unlimited access to all our agricultural news
across the nation
or signup to continue reading
This is why Pinnaroo farmer Wade Nickolls employs a massive range of weed management strategies.
"There is no one technique that is going to solve the problem, you have to throw the kitchen sink at it," Mr Nickolls told the crowd at last month's WeedSmart conference in Mildura.
Mr Nickolls said there were a number of problem weeds on his farm in the eastern SA Mallee.
"Rye and brome grass are two particular problem weeds that we have to keep a close eye on," Mr Nickolls said.
READ MORE:
"We have changed our rotations to be more sustainable, we now don't have a fixed rotation as such, we've moved away from the heavy cereal on cereal rotations we used to have just because it was becoming more and more difficult to keep those grass weeds under control."
He said a mix of chemical and management strategies were used to keep the clamps on weeds.
"We've had good success with imi chemistry on brome grass, especially on sandier soils, but there are some downsides, such as getting enough rain to ensure there are no plant-back issues.
"We have also replaced sheep in our farming system with hay which is a good way to stop weed seed set."
He said a lot of the farm was managed according to the 'strip and disc' system, where it is planted with a disc seeder on relatively narrow rows and then harvested with a stripper front.
The idea behind the system is to increase crop competitiveness to outcompete weeds in-crop.
Mr Nickolls said crop varieties were chosen with competitiveness in mind.
"We have grown high vigour lentil lines and that seems to have gone well."
Double-knocking, when possible, also is a key plank of the Nickolls family's weed management strategy.
"When we can get a good double knock of glyphosate first then the paraquat out with an insecticide later it really helps drive weed numbers down, but we also have to realise that it is dependent on the time of the break as to whether we can do that or not."
Mr Nickolls said the farm was also looking at the best forms of harvest weed seed management.
"Chaff logistics has been hard, burning was OK, using it as feed would have been a lot better but we had no livestock.
"Narrow windrow burning, we found we were losing parts of the paddock, it was way too hard to handle, so it is something we'll keep working on."
Mr Nickolls said the end game would be to get weed numbers to low enough levels that pre-emergent herbicides could be cut out.
"We're nearly there in places, but we acknowledge you'll still need to be on your toes as you're only ever a couple of steps ahead."
"For instance, we ripped one paddock for compaction reasons and that brought up old radish seed from years ago which then germinated.
"The goods new was that the radish was fairly easily controlled but you just have to be always on your guard with weeds."