Special Report
Sounding the alarm on herbicide resistance
University of Arkansas weed scientist Jason Norsworthy has been sounding the alarm on herbicide resistance in weeds for several years now. Norsworthy says that while some progress is being made, he doesn’t think it is happening quick enough to avert a crisis in agriculture.
“At the rate at which we’re losing herbicides due to resistance, we are quickly approaching a crisis,” Norsworthy says. “The reason being is, if we look into the pipeline of herbicide discovery, there’s absolutely nothing there coming within the next 10 years in terms of a new mode of action. And the last mode of action was discovered in 1982.
“I think we’re rapidly approaching the point of a crisis. We’re headed in that direction.”
We visited with Norsworthy right after his presentation at the On-Farm Network Conference in Ames.
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