GM crop management

[Horseyrider]

Please let me preface my question here by saying I have zero desire to start any arguments about the relative merits or the detriments of genetically modified crops. I have a management question that I hope can be answered here by those who have farmed GM crops, a question that is sincere and kind of silly, but I'm totally serious here.

Today I was riding my gelding back from the woods. I'm fortunate to have the most generous neighbors who extend to me the kindness of allowing me the total freedom of their fields, fences, pastures, and woodlands. This afternoon I was riding home from the woods through several fields on a little farm lane, and I noticed quite a few ears that the combine missed last fall.

Here's the question.

If a guy plants Roundup Ready corn and he leaves some ears, and he follows that the next year with Roundup Ready beans, he's going to likely have some volunteer corn that season in his beans. If the corn is Roundup Ready (Roundup resistant), how does he get it out of his beans?

I can't imagine many guys going out and yanking them by hand, especially if he has much ground to farm. So does he just look at the ugly? Or is there an option I'm missing here?

[uncle Will in In.]

They hay herbicides that will kill grass type plants but not broadleafs

[geo in mi]

The farmer doesn't. But the bean screens in the combine will sift out some of the corn. There has always been some percentage of "foreign matter" in beans or any other grain. Read the label on your morning cereal box "This product may contain (beans, corn)--or "is processed on equipment that has been used for (corn, beans)" There has always been a slight mix of corn in beans--unless the Canada geese or deer are bountiful........used to be a lot more of downed or missed ears in the old days with cornpickers--my job sometimes would be to go down the rows and pick up the missed ears--another option was to turn the pigs into the fields(that was when everybody had diversified farms with fences.)

[DaleK]

Depends. If you're tilling the fall tillage will catch most of it, the less tillage you do the more volunteer corn you'll have. There are different cheaper tank mixes with glyphosate that will get the volunteer corn, Poast+RR used to be a pretty popular one, Assure+RR is used a lot here now.

[dcross]

I think most corn is susceptible to Roundup, it's GM'ed to be insect resistant. Weed control in beans is a pain, which is why most of them are RR.

[Bearfootfarm]

Soybeans are generally planted later than corn, so a light disking before planting would kill likely any volunteers

There are also pre-plant sprays other than Glyphosate that can be used

[Horseyrider]

You guys make a lot of sense. Sounds like there are lots of options besides cruddy looking fields.

Thanks!

[rambler]

A herbicide called 'Select' or others of the same type is sprayed on beans to kill grasses, including corn.

While not a stampede of farmers, there are some returning to conventional hybrid corn, as controlling weeds in regular corn is not that difficult, and only using rr soybeans, where weed control is not as easy. Then the roundup sprayed on the beans will control most of the volunteer corn without adding anything else.

For conventional corn, there are some good pre plant herbicides to control grasses, and some good post emerge herbicides to control broad leaves.

Paul

[farmerDale]

This scenario is why I have some concern about too much of a good thing in gm crops. We have one we grow, canola, interspersed with a few years of any of a dozen or more other crops. So controlling gm volunteers is not an issue. One thing with the corn belt, is that there are ll beans too, which would kill the rr corn.

It is not the big tough issue though that some may try to worry others with. As long as the farmer juggles it up a bit, it is easy to kill specific plants...

[Judy in IN]

We used bean hooks and walked the fields last summer. The up side of that was we fed the corn to the livestock. It made a nice ration every evening.

[Bearfootfarm]

One other thing is if you SAW corn on the surface, it's probably NOT going to sprout, or even be there by Spring.

Unless they do tilling shortly after harvest, very little seed would survive

[uncle Will in In.]

The larger problem facing your farmer is why his equipment is missing so much corn. Most don't have that much missed.

[haypoint]

The farmers that I know, that rotate soybeans after corn use GMO BT corn, but not RR corn, for just the reason you mention. The GMO BT corn that comes up the next year in the GMO RR soybeans would be killed by Roundup, leaving clean, weed free high producing GMO RR soybeans. If GMO RR Corn was used, the stray GMO RR corn would not be killed.
A combine adjusted to thresh soybeans would be adjusted to the size of a soybean. Processing a corn stalk and a few ears of dry corn is rough treatment for a very valuable machine.

[Lazy J]

I feel that we never should have had both Glyphosate resistant Corn and Soybeans, it should have been either or not both.

We had a problem with volunteer corn in a replant field two years ago, we used Select and it took care of the problem. Fortunately we have not had a problem with volunteer corn as a rule on our farm.

Jim

[haypoint]

Originally Posted by Lazy J

I feel that we never should have had both Glyphosate resistant Corn and Soybeans, it should have been either or not both.

We had a problem with volunteer corn in a replant field two years ago, we used Select and it took care of the problem. Fortunately we have not had a problem with volunteer corn as a rule on our farm.

Jim

I feel that it is great that we have access to both Glyphasate resistant corn and soybeans. I think we need to formulate a management plan to use them correctly. For those that plant corn after corn, Glyphosate resistant makes sense. Planting RR soy after RR corn doesn't, because the only way you'll get the corn out of the soy is by hand.

[Steve L.]

Originally Posted by Lazy J

I feel that we never should have had both Glyphosate resistant Corn and Soybeans, it should have been either or not both.

We had a problem with volunteer corn in a replant field two years ago, we used Select and it took care of the problem. Fortunately we have not had a problem with volunteer corn as a rule on our farm.

Jim

Originally Posted by haypoint

I feel that it is great that we have access to both Glyphasate resistant corn and soybeans. I think we need to formulate a management plan to use them correctly. For those that plant corn after corn, Glyphosate resistant makes sense. Planting RR soy after RR corn doesn't, because the only way you'll get the corn out of the soy is by hand.

Thank you, haypoint, for making this point.

[DaleK]

Originally Posted by haypoint

I feel that it is great that we have access to both Glyphasate resistant corn and soybeans. I think we need to formulate a management plan to use them correctly. For those that plant corn after corn, Glyphosate resistant makes sense. Planting RR soy after RR corn doesn't, because the only way you'll get the corn out of the soy is by hand.

Volunteer RR corn in RR corn can be a pretty big yield-robber, and there aren't the same tools available as in RR beans. If I think I might be planting a second year of corn I plant non-RR the first year.

[rambler]

I've played with the Liberty Link corn and soybeans some to set up a rotation of different chemistries.

While it works, I've had difficulty with Liberty soybeans on the weeds. The Liberty corn worked very well for weed control, but the LL corn has been real poor yielding.

So, still searching for answers.

The new soybeans coming out in 2014 and 2015 (probably) for resistance to 2,4D and dicomba will offer more soybean choices for weed control. For those of you opposed to gmo crops, these are some new, different non-roundup crops coming out soon that are also gmo, but different setups.

Paul