Best Management Practices (BMPs) for Mitigating Herbicide Resistance in the Northern Great Plains–Educational Tools for Agricultural Professionals

View the project final report

• 2016 annual report

Commodities

• Agronomic: barley, canola, corn, safflower, soybeans, sugarbeets, sunflower, wheat

Practices

• Crop Production: conservation tillage
• Education and Training: decision support system, demonstration, display, extension, networking, participatory research, workshop
• Farm Business Management: risk management, whole farm planning
• Natural Resources/Environment: biodiversity
• Pest Management: chemical control, competition, cultural control, economic threshold, eradication, field monitoring/scouting, genetic resistance, integrated pest management, physical control, cultivation, precision herbicide use, prevention, row covers (for pests), weed ecology
• Production Systems: holistic management
• Sustainable Communities: public participation, community services

Herbicide resistance (HR) in weeds is a threat to the sustainability and profitability of the Northern Great Plains (NGP) agriculture. Growers and ranchers need awareness and training on mitigating HR issues on their farm through adoption of Best Management Practices (BMPs). The main goal of this project was to enhance the knowledge of agricultural professionals on HR weed evolution, dynamics, socio-economic impacts, and mitigation through incorporation of BMPs. This educational project will take place in 3 different phases. During 2016 and 2017, we completed Phase 1 (Course Development) and Phase 2 (Instruction) of this regional project. The major accomplishments/milestones have been provided in the report. Phase 3 (Evaluation) was initiated in the second year (2017) and was accomplished by March 2018 to evaluate the acquired change in knowledge, outreach to growers and ranchers, and long-term gains on the awareness of HR and BMPs.

Objective 1: Course Development (Completed)

1. Major activities: Photographs and details on major herbicide-resistant (HR) weeds of NGP, HR weed infestations on farm fields, frequency and distribution maps at the State/County level, and related research results on HR weed surveys will be compiled into extension bulletin, fact sheets, oral/poster presentations
2. Sustainable BMPs for managing HR kochia through past and current research projects at the MSU Southern Ag Research Center and other published work in the region will be utilized for the development of fact sheets and oral and poster presentations
3. Printing these educational materials and development of web-based training modules

Objective 2: Instruction (Completed)

1. Major activities: Classroom instruction, Field days, and workshops for Ag Professionals
2. CCA seminars, on-site demonstrations, surveys
3. Field instruction for Ag. Professionals

Objective 3: Evaluation (Completed)

1. Main activities: Interactive Workshop
2. Follow-up  surveys
3. Evaluation of knowledge gained by Ag Professionals