Agriculture

Herbicide resistance has become an important issue to consider when making weed management decisions. Weed resistance can and has occurred to several products in recent years. Two examples in our area are resistance to mares-tail and pigweed to glyphosate products.

The potential for weed resistance to develop increases with continued use of herbicides that have similar chemical compositions. So, herbicide use should be monitored and production practices implemented to prevent and reduce the potential for resistance to develop.

 Holden Underwood, a student at Cox’s Creek Elementary School, is the 2012 state winner of Bonnie Plants’ annual third-grade cabbage-growing contest.

Holden’s cabbage grew to 20.5 pounds. He was selected at random from among 65 classroom winners from across the state. Holden earned a $1,000 scholarship from Bonnie Plants, which delivered 21,516 cabbage plants this past season to third-grade students at 284 Kentucky schools.

 One of the signs of spring is the bright yellow flowers that emerge from buttercup plants in pastures and unplanted grain cropland. While buttercup poses little problems to grain crop yields, it can be an issue in pastures.

Buttercups tend to thrive in low areas of fields, generally in soils that remain wet long periods of time and in fields with poor stands of desirable forages. In fact, many pasture fields that have heavy buttercup populations are fields that are heavily grazed by livestock.

 After 20 years of working behind the scenes, a LaRue County farmer found himself in the spotlight at last month’s National Farm Machinery Show.