When do you use herbicide to control weeds in soybean food plots?

By Grant Woods,

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← Grant's Answers — Food Plots
Question
I know that on your soy bean fields you say you don’t use herbicide prior to planting and you let the old stalks decompose and naturally fertilize. How do you get the weeds out well enough to be able to do this? Do you occasionally use a herbicide?

 

Clay,

I do use herbicide about a week before I plant soybeans.  Soybeans are not competitive and won’t perform well if there is weed competition.  I often plant 80+ pounds per acre of Eagle Seed forage soybeans because most of my plots are small (less than two acres) and I like a lot of stems per acre to get ahead of browse damage when the soybeans are small.

Another advantage of planting more pounds per acre is that the soybeans form a crown (block sun from reaching soil) faster and this limits weed growth. Using this technique I usually only have to spray one more time – or two times all year.  This saves money and compensates for planting more pounds per acre.

 

October 28, 2015