Meet the Isoflex^®
active Grower Group:
David Jones

I’ve had issues with both blackgrass and ryegrass over the years with populations of both weeds on the farm.

Blackgrass has become less of a problem but in the past, it’s been a real challenge with various patches of the weed in certain fields, but I’ve managed to get this down to much smaller areas.

Ryegrass is my main weed concern and it has a huge impact on our cropping and management strategy going forward.

We have a nice population of ryegrass that pops up in a few of our fields.

I always ask the question – why have I got it? But I’ve been speaking to many local farmers and can see that it is a big issue wider than just my farm and it’s not to be taken lightly.

To date, we’ve been able to get on top of the ryegrass populations successfully in some areas with spring cropping, rotation and attention to detail.

In one area where the weed had taken over, we have opted to put this area into stewardship as part of our Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) pilot which we’ve been part of for the last two years.

We’ve planted a wildflower meadow across this area and will keep it in for three years. We routinely mow it (in accordance with the regulations) to help control the ryegrass populations and stop them from running to seed.

This weed dominates and is a huge deciding factor in our management strategy, which is why we are taking a long-term approach to reduce the population.

When it comes to chemical control, there are products that work in a wheat crop but are not always available in other crops.

This is why we have switched to spring cropping to try to get on top of the weed.

In one of our fields, we’ve had a few issues with drainage and we wondered if alleviating waterlogged conditions could be a key to reducing our weed problems.

We addressed these issues and the results were really promising. We saw that enhanced drainage directly correlated with improved weed management.

For arable farmers like us, blending traditional methods with a dash of chemicals can be the key. It's about using every tool at our disposal to get the best results for our farms.