Herbicide Resistant Jointed Goatgrass Found

A day many wheat farmers, researchers and others in the industry feared would come finally happened last week, an herbicide-resistant jointed goatgrass plant was discovered.

Ian Burke with WSU’s Small Grains Team said there are very limited options to manage the weed.

“The downside of that is when you have just a single input that controls a weed, or really any pest, and you’re really dependent upon it, you can select for resistance and that’s what’s happened here.”

Burke said his team and the grower are being very aggressive to manage the plants that are resistant to eliminate it from the state, and that this is not a problem that should spread.

This should be a wakeup call to growers Burke said, to find varieties of management options, particularly when managing jointed goatgrass.

“The more growers are aware of the need to keep a close eye on these populations and make sure they’re managed and as much as possible gotten rid of, the better off we’ll be.”

There is a lot of information on jointed goatgrass and how to manage it on the WSU Small Grains website at smallgrains.wsu.edu.

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