# Just an observation



## purplewg (Nov 4, 2009)

For years I have misidentified Johnsongrass. Even my ag guy said it was Johnsongrass. I did a little researching and discovered there are three grasses that confuse folks. Guineagrass, Johnsongrass, and Vaseygrass. I sat down at my PC and did some serious homework. I was about to go buy some Outrider to the tune of $400 when I had the seed head in front of me. I soon discovered what I and my Ag guy assumed was Johnson is really Vasey and can be killing just using Glyphosate. I wonder how many other weeds I have misidentifed over the years and possibly mistreated? Computers and web can be a farmers best friend at times.

I don't claim to be an expert in weed identifcation but from now on I will let Google help me identify them rather than taking someones word for it.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

I'm in a similar situation myself, we have a rye grass that has spread all over here, encroached on several hay fields and taken them over, good thing is they're gone as soon as the temps get up, usually June here. But everyone has been saying its Italian ryegrass....may be, not sure, but I can tell ya that Pastora doesn't kill it in any stage of growth, and Pastora is labeled for "very good" control of Italian ryegrass.


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## terraceridge (Jul 21, 2011)

Will glyphosate not kill johnsongrass?


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

somedevildawg said:


> I'm in a similar situation myself, we have a rye grass that has spread all over here, encroached on several hay fields and taken them over, good thing is they're gone as soon as the temps get up, usually June here. But everyone has been saying its Italian ryegrass....may be, not sure, but I can tell ya that Pastora doesn't kill it in any stage of growth, and Pastora is labeled for "very good" control of Italian ryegrass.


We're having the same problem here and everyone we talk to says it's very hard control and even harder to completely get rid of. No one has a good answer.

Ours looks like this:

http://www.fao.org/ag/agp/AGPC/doc/gallery/pictures/lolimult/lolimult.htm

It's worse this year than last and everywhere it's bad it went down in the heavy rain today taking nice strong Oats and Barley with it. Where it's not the grain looks ok. My late FIL always called it Wire Grass.

Here's pretty article on control:

http://www.smallgrains.ncsu.edu/_Pubs/PG/Weeds.pdf

There's a video at this link, haven't watched it yet.

http://duplin.ces.ncsu.edu/2014/01/wheat-ryegrassweed-management/

We're wondering if we mowed our Oats and Barley hay, baled it, then let it green up for a few days and hit it hard with glyphosate if that would have any affect on it?


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Top link is it.....they're callin it Italian ryegrass here, not sure where it came from, never been a problem in our fields until last three years......I sprayed it with gly during dormancy at 1qt to acre and it did ok at the time, looks like I wasted my money now.....


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

somedevildawg said:


> Top link is it.....they're callin it Italian ryegrass here, not sure where it came from, never been a problem in our fields until last three years......I sprayed it with gly during dormancy at 1qt to acre and it did ok at the time, looks like I wasted my money now.....


Sounds like you may have "Quack Grass" instead of Italian Rye.....looks very very similar and reacts to glyphosate just like you spoke of....came into my place from Orchard Grass seed that came out of Oregon that was supplied by my local co op. Try your Pastora on it next time in early spring when you see it emerging. Best results are achieved when the emerging plants are 3-4 inches tall. The plants at that stage are very fine haired like and extremely dense. Ouack Grass is like Johnson Grass in that it emerges from rhizomes.....QG can form a extremely dense matte of rhizome roots.

Regards, Mike


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

Dawg: I hope someone come up with solution because it's running rampant around here. It's starting to show up in some of the bigger guys fields around here that are farming 1000's of acres and these folks are usually right top of everything but if they aren't able to control it I'm wondering what will control it.

My late FIL never allowed Johnsongrass to take a holt here, everytime a it show up he would wait until it just started to head out and manually clip the heads and Roundup the crap out of the stalks. There's only one area of Johnsongrass here now and my wife does the same thing, clips the seed heads, bag'em and soaks the stalks and it's taken about 3 years but I think she's finally just about killed it.

JOHNSONGRASS CONTROL IN CROPLAND

http://extension.udel.edu/ag/files/2012/08/WF5.pdf

*Johnsongrass Control*

http://soybeans.ces.ncsu.edu/perennial-grass-control/


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

Vol said:


> Sounds like you may have "Quack Grass" instead of Italian Rye.....looks very very similar and reacts to glyphosate just like you spoke of....came into my place from Orchard Grass seed that came out of Oregon that was supplied by my local co op. Try your Pastora on it next time in early spring when you see it emerging. Best results are achieved when the emerging plants are 3-4 inches tall. The plants at that stage are very fine haired like and extremely dense. Ouack Grass is like Johnson Grass in that it emerges from rhizomes.....QG can form a extremely dense matte of rhizome roots.
> 
> Regards, Mike


Wow Mike they're almost identical. Might have to break out a magnifying glass to tell the difference.

"Quackgrass and Italian ryegrass both produce spikelets along an elongate spike, but with an interesting difference. Quackgrass spikelets are arranged with their sides towards the stem, whereas the ryegrass spikelets are edgewise to the stem."

*Left: quackgrass spikelets are sidewise to the stem*.

*Right: rye-grass spikets are edgewise.*


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## rajela (Feb 15, 2014)

UHHH either those pictures are mixed up or my right and left has switched sides.


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

rajela said:


> UHHH either those pictures are mixed up or my right and left has switched sides.


I got it from here, about 2/3rds of the way down the page:

http://ohioplants.org/families-poaceae/


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Yes rajela, looks like they got their wires crossed....or were viewing from the backside of a negative. The pic on the left is Italian Rye(spikelets edgewise) and the one on the right is Quack grass(spikelets sidewise).

Regards, Mike


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## rajela (Feb 15, 2014)

Grateful11 said:


> I got it from here, about 2/3rds of the way down the page:
> 
> http://ohioplants.org/families-poaceae/


Never mind I was just standing on the wrong side of the computer screen...


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## FarmerCline (Oct 12, 2011)

The trouble controlling Italian ryegrass is it has become resistant to many of the herbicides used to kill it. The link grateful posted on small grain weed control lists some of the herbicides that some ryegrass populations have developed resistance to....and glyphosate is one of them. The other problem with ryegrass is it is a prolific seed producer and it doesn't emerge all at one time.....starts in the fall with new plants germinating throughout the winter until early spring....so you may kill the first flush or two but then more will emerge and give the impression the herbicide didn't work. Here in NC some farmers have not stayed on top of ryegrass and have allowed it to run rampant and is a real problem and you can see many fields are infested with it. I have not had a real problem with ryegrass yet but I noticed my new seeding of MaxQ fescue and orchard grass has some ryegrass in it now.....the field had no ryegrass before so I imagine it came in with the seed I planted.


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

The Barley they sowed last Fall is full of Daisy's. It's right in the drill furrows and not in between and I mean it's a lot of it. There's only very sporatic Daisy's in the rest of the fields with Oats. We have to believe it came in the seed. Even though it got liquid nitrogen and 2,4-D earlier this year I don't think they had emerged when it was sprayed. Like my son said today he wonders sometimes if the seed suppliers and the chemical companies aren't in cahoots with each other so they sell more chemical to get rid of noxious weeds, I'd hate to think they would do something like that but.......


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## FarmerCline (Oct 12, 2011)

Grateful11 said:


> The Barley they sowed last Fall is full of Daisy's. It's right in the drill furrows and not in between and I mean it's a lot of it. There's only very sporatic Daisy's in the rest of the fields with Oats. We have to believe it came in the seed. Even though it got liquid nitrogen and 2,4-D earlier this year I don't think they had emerged when it was sprayed. Like my son said today he wonders sometimes if the seed suppliers and the chemical companies aren't in cahoots with each other so they sell more chemical to get rid of noxious weeds, I'd hate to think they would do something like that but.......


 Are you sure they are daisy's and not mayweed chamomile? http://smallgrains.wsu.edu/mayweed-chamomile/


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

FarmerCline said:


> Are you sure they are daisy's and not mayweed chamomile? http://smallgrains.wsu.edu/mayweed-chamomile/


That link says it's also known as Dogfennel. The Dogfennel we know of grows to be 3-4' high in pastures and gets clipped each and we almost have it under control.

I'll try and get a few photos of it tomorrow and post them. I hope it's not Mayweed, quote from link, "Once the mayweed becomes established, eradication is impossible."

This maybe a different variety of Dogfennel but it's what we have some of in the pastures:

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/162286/


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

I know this started off as a Johnsongrass topic but here's some info on Italian Ryegrass and Johnsongrass and much more.

These Docs. are pretty big and they split them up into 6 parts. I had a hard time getting some of them to load, they loaded better if I clicked on them one at a time. I saved them in a folder for later.

http://www2.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/agr/agr6/agr6.htm


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Doesn't do much good in a hay field, but a neighbor used to control quack grass in his corn with atrazine. Might take 6 times the legal limit now, but he use to spray 2 quarts of atrazine to the acre, then come back with drops in a few weeks and hit it again with another 2 quarts, then in another two weeks another 2 quarts. I have quite conveniently forgotten his name btw.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Not sure of the exact species of ryegrass we are planting for cover crops, but unless you use a product like Synergy or even citric acid along with your glyphosate it is extremely hard to get a good kill.

Our mix for burndown in annual ryegrass is 10 gallon to the acre, and that ten gallons contains 28% nitrogen, just enough so the mix is 95% water and 5% nitrogen, this increases the burn that any chemical you use has. Then we also add Synergy at one quart per 10 gallons. Then for ryegrass we use 1 quart to the acre of glyphosate and one pint of 2-4d per acre.

Before we used to do burndown before no-tilling we would plant and spray at the same time, no burndown, and that was straight 28% nitrogen, 1 quart of atrazine, 2 quarts of 2-4d, and however many ounces of Balance Pro per acre. 2-4d if mixed at a quart to the acre with the proper carrier will kill grass.

Again not good for hay, but the combination of the 28%, Synurgy, generic round up and 2-4d would leave the ryegrass deader than a doornail.

A lot of getting a good kill is using the proper adjuvants.


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

The 41% glyphosate type round up we would not use less than 1.5 quarts for cover crop kill / burn down. We use synergy also


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## purplewg (Nov 4, 2009)

terraceridge said:


> Will glyphosate not kill johnsongrass?


They say johnsongrass has become immune to glyphosate in the South. They say it still works in Calif for some reason. Here is the article I learned from.

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ag372


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## purplewg (Nov 4, 2009)

Grateful11 said:


> That link says it's also known as Dogfennel. The Dogfennel we know of grows to be 3-4' high in pastures and gets clipped each and we almost have it under control.
> 
> I'll try and get a few photos of it tomorrow and post them. I hope it's not Mayweed, quote from link, "Once the mayweed becomes established, eradication is impossible."
> 
> ...


I have dogfennel problems also. The good thing is 2-4D pretty much takes care of it here.

I sprayed glyphosate at a rate of about 1.5 quart per acre this past weekend on my Vaseygrass. I probably killed a bunch of grass also but I have to stop the Vasey. It was taking over one field and moving into another.


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