If you plan to spray, know that sometimes clovers are hard to terminate with Glyphosate (Roundup) alone. 2-4,D will terminate the clover better than Gly but it has a residual effect in the soil and you will need to wait a while before you can plant another broadleaf forage. If you apply 1 pint/acre you should wait a week or two before planting. If you apply 2-4,D at 1 quart/acre you should wait 4 weeks before planting.

Another option would be to spray with "Liberty" (24.5% Glufosinate), although there are generic versions that contain the same Active Ingredient (24.5% Glufosinate) which are much cheaper (Cheetah, Surmise and Interline come to mind). I just purchased 2.5 gallons of Interline at Keystone Pest Solutions and it did a great job of terminating my alfalfa/clovers really fast. There is no residual waiting period with Glufosinate.

Interline Herbicide 2.5 Gallons (Same AI as Surmise, Cheetah, Liberty)

If you are planning to drill the brassica seed you could do that any time after the herbicide has dried. If you plan to till the clovers under, you would be best to wait a week or so after spraying to allow the herbicide to do its thing prior to tilling.

Tillage will, no doubt, bring up weed seeds in the soil bank and they will germinate soon after tilling and rain. If you can wait a week or so after those seeds come up you could spray again just prior to planting (with just Glyphosate) and then plant the brassicas without too much more soil disturbance for a fairly weed free plot. The nice thing about brassicas is that they will canopy fast and block out a lot of weed growth.

The biggest thing we all had to learn about planting brassicas is that it is very easy to plant WAY TOO MUCH SEED.

You would be far better off to plant too little seed as opposed to too much. Too much seed results in many, many stunted plants that will grow only very small leaves and bulbs.

The Dbltree method is a very good strategy for feeding deer. Planting brassicas following the clovers (legumes) will allow you to take advantage of some free atmospheric Nitrogen that the clovers should have fixed in their roots.

Best of luck.

 

The biggest thing we all had to learn about planting brassicas is that it is very easy to plant WAY TOO MUCH SEED.

✋

 

If you have to till. I would use the pre-emergent Trifluralin. It works very well. I’ve also used it with clover and sunflowers with great results. I am also guilty of spreading too much seed. I bought a compacted bag of rice hulls. 7 ft.³ it breaks down into potash and potassium and flies the same distance as the seeds out of my spreader. I mix it three part hulls to one part seed.

 

Wildthing, so if I use Interline for burn down prior to brassica planting, if I let it dry, I will kill clovers and other broadleaves in addition to grasses without harming my brassica seeding? Never used this herbicide. And I’m intrigued if I don’t have to add glyphosate to the tank. I’m assuming I would still need AMS.

 

This was the first year I have used it myself ekbelt, but that is my understanding exactly. Glufosinate is a broad spectrum (kills all) herbicide which has no residual effect so you can plant immediately after spraying. They do recommend adding AMS to the water before adding the herbicide (17#/100 gallons). It is also a good alternative to Glyphosate because, as you know, some plants are becoming Gly resistent.

I wanted an alternative to 2-4,D for terminating clovers prior to planting brassicas because of the residual with 2-4,D. I also was rotating 3 acres of alfalfa into brassicas this year and I wanted to make sure I got it all terminated with one application. It sounded like Liberty would fill my needs completely. I found that Liberty was auite expensive but, just like the many generics for Roundup, there are several generics that ate quite a bit cheaper but still have the same active ingredient - 24.5% Glufosinate.

After rolling the rye I sprayed Interline at 1.4 quarts per acre. Within 4-5 days everything was brown and I drilled my brassicas the following day.

I took this photo only 4 days after spraying Interline. It is pretty obvious that I missed a strip but the rest of it is DEAD. I sprayed this strip and 1 or 2 others I missed with Gly the next day and planted the day after that.

You can read the label in this link:

Interline Herbicide 2.5 Gallons (Same AI as Surmise, Cheetah, Liberty)

 

I just learned this morning that there does appear to be a long plant back interval for sorghum and wheat after using Liberty (Glufosonate), so my guess is that will apply to rye or oats as well.

Darn! I was really happy to see that there was zero plant back interval for broadleaf but now I find that that apparently is not the case with grasses. I like to broadcast rye over my brassicas 4-5 weeks after germination of the brassicas but I may not get very good results with that strategy this year.

According to this study by the University of Arkansas, the plant back interval for sorghum is 180 days and for wheat it is 70 days.

https://www.uaex.uada.edu/publications/pdf/MP519.pdf

 

Did it kill the marestail? That stuff is quite resistant!

 

I didn't have any mares tail where I sprayed it ekbelt3. I used it primarily in alfalfa plots that I had drilled rye into last fall and other plots where I had planted fall cover crops last year.

Here is a thread from the Habitat-Talk Forum with lots of discussion on the use of Liberty. Most of the comments from those guys seem to debunk the 70 day plant back interval with success noted in following Liberty/Interline with Milo (a grass) and Brassicas/Turnips/Radish as well.

Liberty herbicide questionAll Things Habitathttps://habitat-talk.com › ... › Foodplots

We have now had plenty of rain since I drilled my brassicas so I should know one way or the other within a few days. And...I think I will go ahead and broadcast rye over my brassicas next month as I normally do and see if the Liberty hampers germination at all.

Time will tell...

 

FWIW @ekbelt3 - I do have germination of brassicas after planting:

Sprayed Interline at 1.4 quarts per acre on July 13th (it nuked everything very quickly and I'm sure I could have done the same at 1 qt/acre). Drilled the first brassica plots 6 days later on July 19th and got rained out immediately after planting. Early this morning - 3 1/2 days later, I have germination:

Supposed to be 81 degrees today so I will have a lot more germination by tonight.

BTW - After experiencing drought conditions all summer, we have received 4.04 inches of rain in the last 4 days.

 

How far do you aim to space those tiny seeds? Thinking about renting a drill again …..

 

That's my concern, we're doing 47 acres and stuff like the Culvers root, 7,800 seeds per ounce. They say space the seeds about every 3', that ain't happening over 47 acres. May just pick and choose some areas to hand plant well, have my wife hand plant.

Most of the rest will go through the planter.

OOps, sorry disregard this post. I was reading a CP42 post elsewhere and somehow ended up posting here.

 

Ended up finding Interline @2.5gallons for $105 at the local growers Co-op. Thanks for the tip.

 

Wow! That is a great price.