Pay Attention To Those Missed Pigweeds

Sep 17, 2013
By William Curran & Dwight Lingenfelter,
 
We returned late last week from a trip to southern Delaware where we participated in a twilight weed control tour at the University of Delaware Georgetown Research and Education Center. One of our take home observations was how widespread Palmer amaranth or pigweed was in that region. Palmer amaranth was the dominant pigweed on the research farm. It is scary to think about how easily the seed could move between farms, counties, states, or regions with grain or other seeds, hay, soil, manure, equipment, etc. Coincidentally, the week before I received a phone call and a follow up email from one of our Pennsylvania agronomists who happened to pass by a soybean field in the southeast region and noticed an unusual looking pigweed. The agronomist decided to investigate, removed the plant(s) from the field, took some photos, and contacted me. I forwarded his images to colleagues in Delaware and Illinois and their response was that it was either Palmer amaranth or perhaps waterhemp. After my trip last week, those southeast PA images sure look similar to what I saw in Delaware. I don’t think the landowner is even aware of the potential problem averted.
 
There is a dairy farm in the area that has been using cottonseed products from the South. The Palmer amaranth infests a number of fields in the area and growers are currently busy digging out and removing plants before they set seed. Palmer amaranth is now a state noxious weed in both Ohio and Delaware.
 
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