Iowa farmers who want to better understand weed resistance are invited to a series of workshops starting on Monday. The Iowa State University Extension is sponsoring “Weeds Week” at its five research facilities statewide. Angie Rieck-Hinz, an extension field agronomist for nine counties in north-central Iowa, says virtually every grower in the state could benefit from attending.

“We’re having a series of workshops, hands-on stuff, to help those farmers and ag retailers to manage for herbicide resistance,” Rieck-Hinz says. “This is a big issue in Iowa. We see more weeds becoming resistant to herbicides every year.” It may cost a chemical company millions of dollars to create a new herbicide and Rieck-Hinz says it doesn’t appear that we should hope for any new products anytime soon.

“We know that in the developmental pipeline, there are no new chemistries or sites of action that are out there,” she says. “We want to make sure we preserve our existing tools in our tool box, our herbicides, as well as some other practices we can do to make sure we have good weed control in the future.” The workshops will include sessions on identifying the weeds, hands-on educational activities and tours of plots.

The programs will be held Monday at the I-S-U research facility in Crawfordsville, Tuesday in Lewis, Wednesday in Nashua, Thursday in Sutherland and next Friday (August 7) in Boone. Learn more at the website: www.aep.iastate.edu/weeds

(Radio Iowa)