ProActive Weed Control Program

By: Nelson Gonzalez

This program was put together through my observations in the field, my experience as a

business owner, grower, and most importantly the opportunity of being a territory manager

which has allowed me to work with many growers and see their day to day challenges. I feel

that one of the biggest challenges a grower faces is the control of weeds throughout the

nursery. We spend valuable hours and dollars to try and control these weeds and some of us

succeed while others do not. But even those that do succeed, do so at what expense. Could

the time and money be better spent? This program will go into depth as to what steps we can

take to control weeds and how we can set up a proactive approach to insure the highest prob-

ability of weed control.

We all want our nurseries to be free from weeds, but other than the obvious what are

some of the other benefits of being weed free and disadvantages of having them.

Lets start with aesthetics. The old saying

“you only get one chance to make a first

impression” holds true as it relates to

weeds. If you have weeds in your nursery,

which who doesn’t, you’ve probably taken

a customer out to look at plants and had

that feeling in the pit of your stomach

where you wish all the weeds could just dis-

appear. I know it’s happen to me, but

worst yet if the plants you are going to look

at are full of weeds. You just know you will

lose the sale. And even if you don’t lose

the sale, keep this in mind, regardless what

anyone says all things being equal custom-

ers will pay a higher price for a product that is perceived to have a higher value. And one

things for sure weeds don’t add value. So keep the weeds out!

Weeds in your containers also rob your crop of necessary nutrients, light and water. The

weeds in the containers are competing with your crop to survive. To do so they will consume

fertilizer that is in the container and if given an opportunity they will outgrow your crop and

prevent it from receiving the necessary light and water.

Many weeds are host to pest and disease. Controlling your weeds will also get you a better

Not what your customer

wants to see.

grasp on your pest and disease issues, as many weeds are host. This will not only improve the

quality of your crop, but also reduce your cost of chemicals to control these pest and patho-

gens.

Don’t miss these. Miss what? The small weeds

that are missed during weeding. Have you ever

noticed that after weeding a crop that has been

overrun by weeds that your employees have a

hard time removing all the smaller weeds. Well

the greater amount of weeds you have the high-

er probability that weeds will be missed, espe-

cially the smaller ones. By being proactive you

will reduce the probability of leaving behind

these small weeds which pre-emergent does not

control. These small weeds within 1-2 weeks will

be visible and more than likely producing seed to further add to the weed population.

Increased weed pressure. Increased weeds in the nursery will mean an increase in weed

seeds available to germinate, so we need to control them. Also, if you do not remove the

weeds in your nursery while they are small, when they are larger and pulled from the contain-

er much of the media that comes up with the weeds will fall on the groundcover and create

yet another area where weeds love to grow.

Controlled weeds = happy employees. Let’s face it, I think one of the worst jobs in a nursery

is weeding. You are humped over, all day, in the hot sun performing a mundane task ( I’m talk-

ing South Florida hot). Believe me I’ve done it, not for long though. Staying weed free will

definitely put a smile on your employees face. Happy employee = productive employee.

Man hours. And I think this is the most important benefit of all. I hear from growers that

they do not have sufficient man power to implement a plan, which means that can not keep a

proactive program in place to control their weeds. This makes sense, right? Wrong. Think of

this, will it take more man hours to keep a nursery clean by chasing around hot spots, addi-

tional spraying due to increased pest and disease pressure, weeding plants heavily populated

by weeds, etc? Or will your work force be more efficient implementing a program that will

keep you 2 steps ahead of the weeds and provide you with all the benefits previously men-

tioned? In the long run you will use less man hours by implementing a proactive weed control

program. It’s just a matter or implementing it and sticking to it.

Don’t miss these.

Ok. Now that we have gone over the benefits of being weed free we will get into some of

the practices we can implement that will suppress weed pressure in our nursery. These are

steps that we must not overlook, but rather make sure we intertwine them into our daily pro-

cedures. After this section we will get into the program.

Keep the non-production areas of the nursery as weed free as possible. This means main-

taining the roadways, fence lines, under benches, etc. Start by first mowing or weeding and

following up with a combination of post-emergent and pre-emergent on these problem are-

as.

-Keep the ground cover free from weeds and debris. In between crops sweep and remove all

debris on the ground cover; this will reduce

the probability of weed seeds germinating

on the groundcover. Also, the degradation

of the groundcover cannot be avoided but

you can help slow the aging process by not

driving over them with golf carts and/or

tractors. When holes and tears begin to ap-

pear, patch these holes and it doesn't hurt

to apply some granular pre-emergent to

these areas before containers are placed on

top of the ground cover to prevent weeds

from popping through.

-Remove containers that have weeds and no plants in them. These areas will allow seeds to

spread throughout your crop.

-Before transplanting liners to a container be sure that liners are weed free. If the liners

have weeds, the seeds will germinate in the media when they are transplanted to a larger

container.

-Identify Weeds. The first thing that should be done is to identify what species are in the

nursery in order to choose the best product to control them. As I stated earlier there are sev-

eral herbicides in the market each with different active ingredients that target particular

weeds. Identify the prominent weeds in the nursery and choose products that control those

weeds as per the label. And remember to rotate between herbicides just like pesticides and

fungicides.

-Trial first. If the pre-emergent is going to be applied for the first time, to a new crop. It is rec-

ommended that a trial with a small number of plants be conducted first for safety.

Keep weeds and debris off the

groundcover.

-Irrigate before applying. If the crop is a new planting, before applying any herbicide irrigate

the crop with 1/2 -1 inch to pack and firm the media and form a level surface with little to no

crevices. Some growers immediately will apply herbicides after planting and while the plants

are still on the cart. This should not be done as the media has not been irrigated and given an

opportunity to settle. Granular herbicides work best on settled media surfaces.

-Remove all weeds. If this is an older crop be sure that the surface is free from all existing

weeds as these pre-emergent products will not control established weeds.

-Prepare your equipment. Be sure to calibrate the equipment by using calibration trays or

Pre-Emergent Cards*** in order to assist you in the correct application of the herbicide. Keep

in mind, if too much is applied then the product is wasted along with your profits. Not to

mention that it could cause phyto-toxicity to the plant and the excess herbicide could en-

ter our environment. If too little is applied then the product may not work; weeds will not be

controlled and resistance could build up in the weed population.

-Uniform application. Apply the herbicide evenly, at the recommended rate in order to

achieve satisfactory weed control and be

certain the foliage is dry.

-Irrigate after application of herbicide.

Once you have applied the herbicide, wa-

ter immediately with ½ to 1 inch in order

to remove any granules that may be on

the foliage and activate the herbicide.

-Do not destroy the chemical barri-

er. These products form a chemical barri-

er on the surface of the media which do

not allow weed seeds the opportunity to

germinate. If you must weed do so care-

fully and hold the media in place as you

pull the root out.

-The efficacy of your pre-emergent may be reduced by topdressing fertilizer. Some studies

suggest that this may be caused by an increased amount of microbial activity due to the ele-

vated levels of nitrogen or it may be caused by elevated levels of salt from your fertilizer.

As with all chemicals, the label supersedes any information that has been given here or any-

where. Always read the label and follow directions.

Everris pre-emergent cards for use

with OH2, Rout, Jewel and Corral.

Now we’re ready to start being proactive with our weed control. I’ll start this section by

discussing a recent trial I conducted in order to demonstrate the benefits of being proactive

when controlling your weeds. And to demonstrate this, what I did was take 3 sets of 9”pots,

with different levels of weed pressure

with each sample containing 10 pots.

Group 1 contained 1 to 2 weeds per pot.

Group 2 consisted of pots in which the

media was covered 50% by weeds and

group 3 was completely overrun by

weeds. Then what I did was time how

long it took me to weed each group. The

end result would be to compare the time

it took to weed each level of weed pres-

sure and demonstrate the benefits of being proactive in controlling your weeds. Once I was

done weeding the plants I compared the data and what it revealed is that group 2, in which

50% of the surface was covered by weeds, took more than 6 times longer to weed than

group 1 which had 1-2 weeds per pot. And when comparing group 3, which was overrun by

weeds to group 1 it took more than 14 times longer to weed group 3 compared to group 1.

Now that’s a lot of weeding. We can also look at this way. If you’re paying someone $9 an

hour to weed a crop similar to group 1 it will cost you $350 to weed 50,000 plants , if your

plants looked like group 2 it will cost you $2,300 to weed 50,000 plants and if your plants look

like group 3 it will cost you $5,000 to weed the 50,000 plants. If that doesn’t cause you to be

proactive with your weed pro-

gram, I don’t know what will.

This trial leads us to where

we are now. I will now go into

how we can implement a disci-

plined program that will insure

that we become as weed free

as possible. We start by de-

signing a map of the nursery,

we’ll call this map a “Weed

Map”. This “Weed Map” will

consist of roadways and bays,

providing a birds eye view sim-

ilar to the map on the right.

If your bays are numbered these numbers should be reflected on the map. These “Weed

Maps” will be used when scouting for weeds, so numbering the bays will make it easier. Cre-

ate these maps in a way that possibly at a later date they can be used to scout for pest and

disease, but for now they will be used to scout for weeds. Now depending on the size of

the nursery, crops involved, location of the nursery and crops we can choose how many em-

ployees will be trained to perform the scouting. These employees will scout the nursery for

weeds, not like scouting for pest and disease, but

rather a drive by approach can be taken. The scout

will take his/her map once every 2-3 weeks, again

depending on the circumstances and record the

findings in the field as they relate to weed pres-

sure. (Scout can also scout the roadways and com-

mon areas) The amount of weed pressure in the

containers will be classified as can be seen in the

pictures to the right. Plants with no weeds will not

need to be classified. Plants with 1-2 weeds will

be classified as #1. Plants with 50% of the media

covered by weeds will be classified as #2. And

plants in which 100% of the media is covered by

weeds will be classified as #3.

Once the scout collects this information for all

locations the information can then be given to the

person that will coordinate the removal of the

weeds. Depending on the size of the nursery and

circumstances there should be at least 2 crews to

perform the weeding. These 2 crews can alternate

in order to give the other group an opportunity to

recover from weeding. The coordination of what

plants should be weeded is very simple, start with

the 3’s and work your way down. Once you start to

achieve control you will see that you will not have

any 3’s on your maps, but rather 2’s. The goal is to

eventually get to the point where there are only 1’s

to deal with, these are plants that have 1 to 2

weeds per pot.

#1 1 to 2 weeds per pot.

#2 50% weed coverage.

# 3 100% weed coverage.

In order for this program work properly it should be implemented in conjunction with the herbicide program. Post and pre-emergent should be sprayed on roadways and other com-mon areas on a routine basis or as indicated by the scouting report. When it comes to apply-ing pre-emergent herbicides on the crops that were recently weeded, careful attention should be placed as to when that crop received it’s last application of herbicide. If the last applica-tion of the herbicide has expired or is due to expire, a new application of herbicide should be applied or scheduled. The most important aspect of applying herbicide is to apply it at the proper rate, attain proper coverage and apply it in a timely manner in order to increase the efficacy of the herbicide. Also just as important is to identify weeds throughout the nursery and choose the proper herbicide. Follow this link to visit our website and view our herbicides and their specimen labels. http://everris.us.com/product/herbicides This program was designed to get your nursery weed free, but will not be effective without your commitment and implementation. So make a commitment to be weed free, start utiliz-ing your resources and contact me Nelson Gonzalez at Nelson.gonzalez@everris.us.com or 305-890-6155 for additional support or consultation. And as always remember “Don’t Grow It Alone”.

Nelson Gonzalez