Rain and Herbicide Programs

By Dusty Sonnenberg, CCA, Field Leader, a project of the Ohio Soybean Council and Soybean Checkoff

Water and herbicides can have a love/hate relationship. We use water as a carrier to deliver herbicides to the target weed, or to soil during application. After that, depending on the type of herbicide, we may need water in the form of rain to incorporate the herbicide into the soil to impact the seed emergence process. Beyond that, rain can be a negative factor when it comes to weed control. Rain can delay timely herbicide applications, or it may increase the biological breakdown of herbicides.

Dr. Alyssa Esman is an assistant professor and weed science extension specialist at The Ohio State University. She said the rain this spring has had an impact on weed control.

“Rain does a couple things when it comes to weed control. The first is that it prevents timeliness for some applications.… Continue reading