Heavy rains sprout weeds that hinder local farmers
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MADISON COUNTY, Tenn. — Recent rains bring more than just flooding problems for West Tennessee farmers. It’s also causing an unusual amount of weeds, which is costing farmers time and money. “This year, we’ve had a lot of rain — a lot of rain — and it’s been really difficult to get the herbicides put down,” said Garret Montgomery, a UT graduate student. This has been the constant trend this season. The wet fields aren’t allowing farmers to get into them, and weeds are thriving on the rainy forecasts. “We’re having a lot of cases where weeds are emerging and getting much larger than we can control before we get out there and make some type of application,” Montgomery said. Jimmy Stanford, a local farmer, says it has been a challenge working around the wet conditions. “Most of these chemicals have at least an hour and a half to 2-hour drying time, and if you can’t, if it rains before that time, it washes it off and you hadn’t done any good.” When the weeds get too tall, they become harder to kill. “What we’re having to do is go in with multiple shots and try and kill them the best we can knock them down,” said Madison County Extension Agent Jake Mallard. Stanford took advantage of the dry weekend, but it wasn’t easy because his fields were still saturated with water. “Get in it and get it tore up to get it sprayed — you couldn’t spray it. We’ve had to spray some of this with a four-wheel-drive tractor that we could get over it.” He says staying organized is helping him this season. “Just management — you got to stay at it at all times because everything is different, every field is different. You got different weeds in every field. You got to spray different.”
