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Soil-residual herbicides that can be applied to emerged corn

Some farmers might be unsure which soil-residual herbicides can be applied to emerged corn.

University of Illinois Extension weed scientist Aaron Hager says there are dozens of commonly used products that won’t cause injury.

“Now some of these you can go fairly late in fairly tall corn, whereas others are fairly short. Maybe two-leaf corn, or four inches at the absolute most, up to some that actually literally can go by what we used to call the ‘layby stage.’ So quite a bit of variation also in the products and at the time that they can be used once the corn does come out of the ground.”

He tells Brownfield there are several factors that can stretch out the planting season and duration of crop emergence.

“A lot of these growth stages, especially the early ones, have a lot to do with injury potential to the crop itself. So if we push these things (and) exceed what those label guidelines would tell us in terms of maximum growth stage or maximum height, a lot of times the potential for crop injury does increase.”

Hager has put together a table of herbicides paired with maximum corn size for broadcast application.