b"ERIN BURNS (EB): Theyre a beast within themselves with having that huge storage reserve compared to some of other weed species with much smaller seeds. And they just have the ability to grow quite quickly and be quite damaging to the crop that they're competing with. And then specifically in corn, and in many other cropping systems, there are no herbicides available that will both completely control the volunteers. Ultimately, the goal is to reduce that number of daughter tubers that are produced.SS: Can you remove them with agronomic practices?GG: From a volunteer perspective, taking more potatoes out of the field the better you're going to be. And to be able to do that, that's where you need to have any practices to ensure a uniform, properly sized crop, so that you're able to get the most out of the field as possible. So that comes down to your seed spacing, your seed manage-The field used in the Michigan State University trial with Erin Burns to test volunteer potato control.ment, making sure that you've got a healthyPHOTO: ERIN BURNSseed stock, putting the right fertility there for the size profile that you're looking for, reducingmay become more problematic in the future if youBut the strongest ones as far as the cereal these impacts. don't have that problem yet. So, studies at MSUperspective, Infinity, Refine and Refine + MCPA When you get into the actual harvest of(Michigan State University) have shown that mostwere the best as far as suppression goes, but your potato crop, make sure that your harvesterpotato cultivars that we grow here in Michigan,a little bit more reduction in tuber yields. But settings and speeds are set correctly. Try to makebreak down after about a day of exposure to eitherhonestly, any of the grain herbicides were not as sure that you're maximizing the amount of product27 F or just -2.8 C. That's about for a day, give orstrong as the Roundup or Callisto was in the trial.that goes back into the bin for storage, avoidingtake a few hours.spills in the field, making sure that your tubersEB: So, some conclusions from the studies we have fully removed from the stems so they're notSS: How do you eliminate them in aconducted in corn is, overall, the addition of getting caught on the vines and going throughcereals field? Corn field? atrazine to these HPPD inhibitorsso, it's your harvester that way. And that's where makingGG: Roundup was the best treatment for visualgroup 27, across the boardimproved volunteer a proper desiccant choice if required is import- control and daughter tuber yield. I think Rounduppotato control, as the size of volunteer potatoes ant. Then the other option is an infield sproutingis the strongest option that we had in the trial.increased our ultimate control decreased And inhibitor, we've really gotten away from that. ButCallisto had some regrowth, but there was somethen ultimately, what you're going to apply to it is something to consider if your markets willgood control of daughter tubers. So, for corncontrol volunteers, you need to keep in mind what allow that. production, or some of the other crops that Callistoyour future crop rotations are to make sure that has a label for, I think this is a good option. MCPAyou're staying within those rotation restrictions.EB: Here, especially in Michigan, we've relied onamine was not really effective. Moving over toFor more information on volunteer potatoes our cold weather to kill some of these volunteers,Pixxaro and Trophy did improve visual suppression,visit SpudSmart.com and watch our latest webinar and that's just not happening anymore. So, theybut they didn't really improve the final tuber yields.about it. SPRING 2021 SPUDSMART.COM 43"