- Volunteer rapeseed plants may appear even after a long break in rapeseed cultivation.
- Fighting them is easy, but not if we are talking about plants from the same family.
We cannot combat rapeseed volunteers in rapeseed using standard technology.
Rapeseed volunteers are one of the most widespread weeds. This is of course largely related to the high share of rapeseed in crop rotation. They appear most often in plantations where rapeseed appears every other year, although this is not the rule. They can also appear in the third or even fourth year after rapeseed cultivation. Theoretically, they are quite easy to control. However, we have a problem when they appear in rapeseed.
We are unable to combat volunteer rapeseed when they occur in winter rapeseed (the exception is the clearfield technology, which is slightly more complex, but in conventional cultivation, volunteer rapeseed in rapeseed will remain in the field). In such a situation, it is a rapeseed weed. From the biological side, it is the plant itself, and because it belongs to the same family, it is impossible to eliminate volunteer rapeseed from rapeseed with herbicides.
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Locally difficult rape emergence. How to break the soil crust?
Self-seeds will become "rush"
Wild-growing rapeseed has a unique structure – it has a less well-built root system and outgrows sown plants (due to earlier germination and emergence).
The effects of such a situation – very visible – will be visible in spring. On the plantation we will notice many so-called "rushing" plants, which will start flowering much earlier, even two weeks before the actual flowering phase begins.
This is also a protection problem, because due to the fact that bolting will constitute a fairly large share, the window in which plants are exposed to attack by pests is extended. Not only during the flowering period. Susceptibility to pests will be related to the fact that they can invade the plantation earlier with a large share of volunteer rapeseed, which develops faster.
Strong volunteer rapeseed will be pushing out above the field throughout the autumn. When we start regulatory treatments, they will already be in such advanced stages of development that the given retardants will work on them, although the regulatory effect will be rather poor.
Generally, the large presence of volunteer rapeseed plants in rapeseed is not beneficial, because they will naturally produce a lower yield than sown plants, and are a source of infection, and at the same time they promote a greater number of pests due to the fact that they will be present on the plantation for a longer time window.
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High temperatures deepen drought. Rapeseed with difficult emergence
Rapeseed weeds also in plough cultivation
It is a mistake to assume that such a situation, when self-seeded rape appears on the actual rape plantation, occurs only with simplifications. Yes, with large simplifications such a risk increases. So simplified cultivation, without ploughing (because these are slightly different technologies after all), but such a situation can also occur with plough cultivation. The photo of the plantation comes from the site where ploughing was performed. However, the field was ploughed in the second half of July (after fertilization with manure), and the weeds at the time of sowing were only destroyed with a cultivator. If they are very dense, two passes with the cultivator should be made immediately after each other, then the self-seeded rape would be eliminated. One pass is not enough, but let us also remember the principle of not over-compacting the soil.
It's rapeseed and that too
We know that we will not eradicate these plants and what is connected with their presence on the plantation. However, the argument that it is rape and that is it is comforting. Although volunteers are rape weeds and should be treated as such, their presence on the rape plantation does not disqualify the crop in any way. If the plantation is run using conventional technology (i.e. the vast majority) and volunteer rapeseed has appeared on it, there is no other way but to go through this season with them. Now, at the stage of emergence, there is nothing we can do to eradicate these weeds.
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