Regional wheat, barley and pulse farmers and land-grant universities have teamed up to form a coordinated group of more than 20 scientists devoted to researching herbicide resistance in weeds.

The Pacific Northwest Herbicide Resistance Initiative directs $1.8 million each year to the USDA Agricultural Research Service and $1.2 million each year to University of Idaho, Oregon State University and Washington State University.

Efforts began in September 2022. The USDA is hiring three new weed scientists, including Olivia Landau, who began in April in Pullman, Wash.

Another scientist will also be located in Pullman and the third in Pendleton, Ore.

The initiative recently finished interviews and hopes to make offers soon, said Ian Burke, WSU crop and soil scientist and professor.

“The stream of new chemistry to solve our weed problems is dried up, and I don’t have any hope for it to start flowing again any time soon,” said Ben Barstow, Washington Grain Commission chairman and a Palouse, Wash., farmer. “If we don’t find something in these plants’ biologies that we can exploit to help control them, we’re going to have to go back to a lot more tillage for weed control.”

‘Alarming’ picture

Herbicide resistance is particularly a concern in low rainfall zones where farmers are battling cheatgrass, Burke said.

During recent surveys, Burke’s team found a significant increase of resistance to common Group 2 herbicides in downy brome cheatgrass, and to glyphosate across the region in cheatgrass.

“It’s alarming,” Burke said. “The most worrisome aspect is, I’ll get pictures of farmers that show their new tillage equipment, and these are farmers that really committed themselves to trying to do this without tillage or soil disturbance, and they’re having to reincorporate mechanical weed management back into their systems.”

For soil erosion purposes, “that’s not the direction we want them to go at all,” Burke added.

Seed bank

A large part of Landau’s job is identifying the genetics controlling herbicide resistance mechanisms, and characteristics that help weed seeds persist in the seed bank.

Soil seed bank dynamics are a less-discussed factor, she said.

Her team considers the micro-biome for weeds, and whether weeds succeed or fail.

“That could be a source of bio-control in the future, but it’s in the early stages,” she said.

New creativity

Adding new scientists is an opportunity to bring in new creativity and new ideas, Burke said.

“People are really excited about solutions — they want to hear ideas on what to do,” he said.

Burke, Landau and other researchers offer growers a list of potential ideas on how to tackle the problem.

“None of these are inexpensive or easy,” he said. “That’s herbicide resistance in a nutshell: Herbicides are inexpensive and relatively easy to use, but the alternatives to that are not.”

Grower input

Landau and Burke welcome feedback from farmers about their biggest problems.

“Innovation often happens on the farm,” Burke said.

The researchers are excited to hear any ideas.

“Even if it’s the wildest, craziest thing they’’ve been thinking about for a few years or tried out on their farm and want people to know about, we really want to take any ideas we can and see if we can test them and make them work for more people,” he said.

Pacific Northwest Herbicide Resistance Initiative

https://pnwhri.org/