If you’re out harvesting lately, you might have noticed a few weeds.  And no matter if you are harvesting a small garden or a thousand acre field, you are probably cussing the weeds.  And if you are cussing the weeds, you have lots of company.

Out in Australia, they have weed problems too.  In fact, Western Australia claims to have the most herbicide-resistant weeds in the world.  So, some enterprising Aussies got to thinking and came up with a new method of weed control.  They crush them.  

A Western Australian farmer who was fed up with weeds and tired of trying new herbicides, built a chaff-catching unit that pulled behind a combine.  The unit was made from a mill that was originally used for crushing coal.  It crushed coal lumps into powder finer than talc, so the farmer figured weed seeds didn’t stand a chance.  

After awhile the farmer caught the attention of a weed scientist from the University of Western Australia, who threw some research money into the project.    It took them awhile, but they finally came up with a technique that destroyed 98-99% of weed seeds coming out of the combine!  

It was great for Western Australia, but when weed scientists from the US started working on their own version of the weed crusher, they ran into new problems.  

    Palmer Amaranth is one of the toughest weeds alive, and it has become resistant to at least six types of herbicide.  Weed scientists from Arkansas decided to try the weed crusher on it.  But what worked in dry Western Australia didn’t work in Arkansas because the weeds were too green and clogged the crusher within a few feet.  Later tests revealed that combining soybeans after a frost worked better, because the pigweed was drier.  But that didn’t help farmers in the South.

They also came up with methods of windrowing the chaff, including the weed seed, and then burning the windrow or treating it with herbicide, but both of these methods also had drawbacks.  Most of the methods of weed-fighting had some success, but nothing was a slam-dunk, so the trials and the errors go on.

So what does that mean to us here in the western part of America?  Well, it’s nice to know people are out there finding new ways to fight weeds.  And it’s good to know that not every way includes a new chemical.  But one of the biggest things to remember is that Palmer Amaranth is one heck of a tough weed.  If they can’t find a way to beat it, could somebody please find a market for it?