sugarbeet – A Plant Out of Place

The role of reflected light quality in crop-weed interactions

December 15, 2015February 15, 2018 - by Andrew Kniss

This post is a slightly edited excerpt from an article we wrote for Reflections magazine. Plants need light – this is one of the first biology lessons children learn in school. Plants convert sunlight into forms of energy the plant can use to grow. Nearly everything humans eat is derived in some way from photosynthesis, whether the tomato picked from a garden or a ribeye steak that once grazed on grass. Sunlight seems like a plentiful enough resource, but there’s …

The “failure” of biotechnology to increase crop yield

February 26, 2014February 15, 2018 - by Andrew Kniss

For some reason, over the last few days I’ve heard a lot of people criticizing GMOs for not increasing crop yields. This criticism certainly isn’t new. I don’t really understand the reason for the sudden resurgence of this claim, but it does provide an excuse to address the topic with some actual data. GMOs can claim some successes, but a widespread quantum leap in the yield of important food crops is not one of them. – Jonathan Foley If you take a …

Using ethofumesate when irrigating for emergence

April 1, 2013February 15, 2018 - by Andrew Kniss

by Andrew Kniss & Abdel Mesbah At a recent meeting in Powell, I was asked how to best use ethofumesate (active ingredient in Nortron SC and other herbicides) in fields that must be furrow irrigated for sugarbeet emergence. This is a difficult question. Ethofumesate (and almost all soil applied herbicides) require soil moisture to be effective. Ideally, residual herbicides should be applied to the soil shortly before either rainfall or overhead irrigation. Growers who have sprinkler systems in their field …