John KempfRegenerative Agriculture Entrepreneur

Soil Health Program Resolves Canada Thistle Problem

12 Aug 2020 · 2 min

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1:41

A farmer fertigated a soil primer through a pivot onto mature corn with Italian ryegrass cover crop in fall 2017, then planted soybeans the next spring. Canada thistle patches that had persisted for years were largely gone by first cultivation, controlled by the combination of the fall primer and a starter mix at planting.

Questions this video answers

Fall of 2017.

Italian ryegrass.

25 grams of Spectrum, 0.5 gallon of Rejuvenate, and 0.5 gallon of SeaShield.

Chapters

In fall of 2017, we fertigated the soil primer through our pivot onto a corn crop that was fully matured. And we had a cover crop underneath the canopy of the corn crop of Italian rye grass. Full coverage of the soil with that companion crop and the soil primer with them growing roots and everything just did a really good job of starting off right away in a good way. And then the next spring, we planted soybeans into that corn. At planting, I saw the canthistle patches and I thought, oh, boy, we're going to have to deal with these canthystle again this year. I mean, these kanathal patches have been there for years and have been growing and becoming more numerous in the field. By the time I came around to cultivate the soybeans for the first time, the canthystle were gone or greatly decimated. I mean, there were few and far in between canthistle patches or plants in the patches, very few. And in that starter for those soybeans was the soil primer, which would been 25 grams of spectrum, half a gallon of rejuvenate, half a gallon of seashield. And I'm thinking that application or a combination of the fall soil primer application and the half bait in with the starter is what did the cannon thistle in.