How do brome grass and jointed goatgrass reproduce, and how should they be removed?

In recent years, a large number of grass-family weeds have appeared in some wheat-growing regions, such as “brome grass”, “jointed goatgrass” and “wild oats”. This type of grass-family weed is not very easy to remove; it is cleared year after year yet still grows year after year, and for this reason farmer friends feel helpless and get bad headaches. So what are the reasons grass-family weeds reproduce so rampantly, and what methods can be used to remove them?

Reasons grass-family weeds reproduce so rampantly

1. Grass-family weeds grow almost alongside wheat; during the seedling stage they are mixed in among the wheat seedlings and are not very easy to spot, and by the time they reach maturity they ripen a period earlier than the wheat, so they cannot be harvested together with the wheat.

2. Grass-family weeds and wheat are very similar to each other, and most wheat herbicides cannot effectively control grass-family weeds, while they are especially likely to cause herbicide damage to the wheat.

3. In the early stage, when the number of grass-family weeds is small, their impact on wheat is negligible, so farmer friends do not pay attention to them; but once they have multiplied to a certain number, controlling them becomes extremely difficult.

4. In the past, after the wheat harvest, as the straw was burned, most of the grass-family weed seeds that had fallen to the ground lost their ability to germinate; now, with the ban on straw burning and the rise of returning straw to the field, this has to a certain extent provided protection for grass-family weed seeds.

How should grass-family weeds be removed?

1. Sow appropriately late    When weather, timing and other conditions permit, wheat can be sown appropriately late; after the grass-family weeds sprout, rotary tillage can be used to bury them underground and smother them. This method can only control the number of grass-family weeds to a certain extent and cannot completely remove them.

2. Chemical control    Before wheat overwinters, at the 3~5 leaf stage, most grass-family weeds have already emerged, and their tissues are tender with poor resistance to chemicals; in addition, the wheat field has a small coverage area, so the chemical has a large contact area with the weeds and they absorb a large amount of it. This is the best time to apply the chemical, and the control effect is good. Per mu, use 20ml of 3% mesosulfuron-methyl together with 60ml of alkyl ethyl sulfonate adjuvant, mixed with 30kg of water, and spray. Note that the chemical should be applied when the weather is good and the daily average temperature is not lower than 10°C; otherwise it will affect the efficacy or increase herbicide damage.

3. Manual removal    During the period from wheat heading to before maturity, manually search for and remove the remaining grass-family weeds.

4. Crop rotation or fallow    When the number of grass-family weeds is very large and difficult to control, crop rotation or one year of fallow can be used, and in this way they can be removed to the greatest extent.