Increasing wheat sowing rates for weed control: does it lead to lower yield or quality?
GOA's recent research includes numerous years of trial work into increasing wheat sowing rates for weed control.
Much of this work was conducted in the low rainfall areas of our region.
Findings include:
- Growers need to employ non herbicide strategies such as increasing crop competition, to aid in the battle against weeds.
- Increasing sowing rates to increase crop competitiveness may be cheaper and easier to adopt than alternates such as reducing row spacings.
- In 99% of yield and 97% of screenings comparisons there was no negative impacts from moving from the lowest population to the next highest (60-100 or 30-70 plants/m2).
- Lower sowing rates often resulted in lower yields than higher rates.
For more information, have a look at our 2025 GRDC update paper: https://www.grainorana.com.au/documents?download=198
OR listen to our podcast: https://t.co/mMZUqSPqvk
