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Minnesota sugarbeet growers trying to stay ahead of weeds

West-central Minnesota sugarbeet growers are trying to stay ahead of resistant weeds after a delayed start to the season.

Todd Geselius with the Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative in Willmar says herbicide-resistant water hemp is a huge problem in that part of the state.

“And to our growers’ credit, they have generally adopted some very good techniques with soil-applied herbicides in order to control that particular pest.  But with the later planting, that puts all of the spray applications in a bit of a crunch time-frame.”

With earlier planted beets beginning to emerge, he tells Brownfield the clock is ticking on getting a pre-emergent herbicide down.

“Just to buy them some time because we know those weeds are going to be coming shortly after we got things planted, and next thing you know we’re going to have to be trying to get after them from a post-emergent standpoint.  So we really made that a big push this year.”

Geselius says so far it appears growers have been mostly successful in neutralizing early-emerging weeds.