he Dakotan: This is Ag Issues with Neil Roberts. Neil Roberts: Welcome to another edition of Ag Issues. Our guest is Mountrail County Ag Agent Jim Hennessy this week. And Jim, let's talk weed seed production. In short, this will be definitely a better year for crops, but also a better year for weeds. Right. Jim Hennessy: And especially this year, we're seeing a lot of weeds that probably dormant for many years. And people ask, what do you mean dormant? And dormancy usually can be five years as high as up to 20 years with Canada Thistle. So we're seeing plants that are actually germinating. They've been laying dormant with all this moisture. For example, leafy spurge we've seen across state huge numbers and huge numbers or a lot of new seedlings coming in. When we get moisture like we have, they take off and we've had a banner year for years for a lot of these weeds All right. Neil Roberts: Good stuff, Jim. And hey, we'll talk more on weed seed production when we come back. The Dakotan: You're listening to Ag Issues with Neil Roberts on the Dakotan Network. Neil Roberts: Talking Weed seed production with Jim Hennessy today on ag issues. And Jim, for every weed we see, you told me during the break the multiplication numbers can be really staggering. Jim Hennessy: Yeah. When you started looking at weeds out there and I know out west here, one of the big ones we deal with is EPS interim one. And it's probably one of the biggest seed production is from Wormwood and that's a million seeds per plant it'll produce. Now, if they lay dormant for five years now, multiply is even more so when we get a wet year, they take off quite a bit. Some of the other ones that we deal with, for example, like your thistles, it's going to be anywhere from 1500 and up to Russian Thistle, probably about 10,000. So it's not just a few seeds per plant, it's multiple. And when we run into that, it causes quite a problem. So I mean our chemicals do a good job, but management's going to be a big factor also. Neil Roberts: All right. Stay on top of it, folks. Thanks, Jim, for your time. And that will bring this report to a close. Until next time, I'm Neil Roberts. The Dakotan: You're listening to the Dakotan Network. Real. Honest. Local news.
