Dr. Richard Zollinger’s presentations often featured SOA 31. His message was properly timed inter-row cultivation was effective for controlling weeds and weeds do not develop resistance to cold hard steel.

Cultivation removes weeds that glyphosate fails to control, but the removal is limited to between crop rows and remaining weeds should be removed through other means such as hand weeding. NDSU research reports cultivation improved waterhemp control by 10 to 15% in sugarbeet compared to glyphosate plus a chloroacetamide POST. We did, however, observe cultivation in an underdeveloped crop canopy (less than 8-lf sugarbeet) followed by excessive rain caused further weed flushes to become worse than plots without cultivation.

Chloroacetamide herbicides (SOA 15) have an effective life of 2 to 3 weeks and our data indicates cultivation 2 to 3 weeks following residual herbicide application does not interfere with herbicidal activity, but some producers may consider following cultivation with another residual herbicide application (layered application or residual herbicides) to further suppress weed flushes.