[Warrnambool Standard Thurs, 08 July 2010 By STEVE HYNES] -- WEED resistance is one of the biggest threats facing the fntnre of agriculture, a visiting scientist says. Harry Strek, leader of a weed research team with Bayer CropScience in Germany, told the International Congress of Pesticide Chemistry in Melbourne this week that research suggested half of agricultural weed species would be resistant to the world’s most relied-upon knockdown herbicide, glyphosate, by 2018.
"Weeds present a higher global threat to yield loss than even fungus and insect infections," Dr Strek said. "Inability to control weeds will certainly cause problems for agriculture in the future."
Dr Strek conducted research in Australia alongside Professor Stephen Powles, from the University of Western Australia. It revealed that Australia had one of the highest incidences of weed resistance per hectare of farming land anywhere in the world. Dr Strek said weed resistance was often caused by farmers relying on the use of a single herbicide group. Most weeds within a plant population will respond to the herbicide, but a small number will not. Continual reliance on one mode of action means that the susceptible weeds are removed and the resistant strains become more prolific, overtaking the plant population over time.
He said the challenge in Australia would be to persuade farmers and agronomists to change their weed management systems before weed resistance became an even larger problem. "To simply respond to ecological threats as we are presented with them is not enongh," Dr Strek said. "We need to change onr practices now to stop weed resistance from having a potentially devastating effect down the track. "Integrated management practices, including crop rotation, maintaining herbicide diversity, non-chemical soil cultivation and equipment sanitation are key to preventing weed resistance in Australia."
Article: WeedsNews631 (permalink) Categories: :WeedsNews:weed control, :WeedsNews:agricultural weed, :WeedsNews:herbicide resistance Date: 8 July 2010; 9:24:23 AM AEST