Such eye openers! Seeing is believing! (and remembering!)
Manitoba Agriculture’s Crop Diagnostic School is always a fantastic learning event. For 2025, the pulses and weeds sections were combined and provided excellent real world knowledge that we could hear, feel, see, and touch from Crops Specialist- Weeds Kim Brown-Livingston and Crop Specialist-Pulses Dennis Lange. They reviewed the herbicide options for dry beans and soybeans and stressed the importance of pre emergent residual chemistry.
Follow along as we highlight just a few of the most important things we were able to see first hand so you too can know how things look when they go good, bad, and ugly in the real world when it comes to spraying for weeds in your pulse and soybeans.
THE GOOD
When you seeded Xtend Flex or E3 soybeans and you maximize the ability to use a few different herbicide groups when spraying those soybeans during the season which keeps them clean and the weeds are effectively targeted. In the demonstration plot below on the left, the Xtend Flex soybeans were sprayed first pass with Round Up Transorb tank mixed with Xtendimax 2 at the high rate, and then followed by a second pass that was intentionally timed later of Liberty 200 SN tank mixed with Ammonium Sulfate. In the demonstration plot below on the right the Enlist E3 soybeans were sprayed first pass with Round Up Transorb tank mixed with Enlist 1, and then followed by a second pass later of Liberty 200 SN tank mixed with Ammonium Sulfate.
Important tips: Liberty 200 SN is NOT the same Liberty that you spray on Invigor canola (that’s Liberty 150)
Liberty 200 SN must be tank mixed with 2 litres/ acre of AMS and sprayed at 20 gallons of water/ acre to make it work effectively!
THE BAD
The group was sent out to the dry bean plots and told to look for something that doesn’t belong.
What doesn’t belong was a volunteer soybean in a dry bean crop. Soybeans are concern and considered an allergen in the edible bean business. A load of dry beans that had soybeans in it might be rejected at the processors. For example Navy beans being delivered to Heinz has zero tolerance for soybeans. It is important to make sure that your crop rotation has soybeans further than 2 years before seeding dry beans. For example, if you grew soybeans in year 1, wheat in year 2, and dry beans in year 3, you may still have volunteer soybeans that appear in the field and in crop herbicide applications for dry beans won’t kill volunteer soybeans.
A bad thing to do in Soybeans
What is wrong with the herbicide treatment pictured below where on Xtend soybeans Round Up Transorb was applied and followed by by another application of Round Up Transorb?
Using only one mode of action for herbicide, doesn’t control Round Up tolerant volunteers and can lead to the development of Round Up resistant weeds. It is important to always use multiple modes of action wherever possible.
THE REALLY BAD
What does it look like when the wrong chemistry gets sprayed on or drifts unintentionally onto soybeans?
Left: We were able to see symptomology on Xtend Flex soybeans if they were to receive a tank mix of Round Up Transorb and Enlist 1
Right: This is what it looks like when E3 Beans are “unintentionally” sprayed with tank mix of Round Up Transorb and Xtendimax 2 at high rate
THE UGLY
Without any water in the tank, watch what happens when Round Up Transorb is mixed with Enlist 1 (2,4 D choline)!!
The two salts added directly together formed a solid sludge, imagine that in a spray tank, yikes!
Very IMPORTANT Tip: Keep everything in solution by first filling your tank at least 1/2 full of water, add Enlist 1, agitate, add more water, wait 5 minutes, THEN add Round Up Transorb, continue agitating, then add the rest of the water (high salt glyphosate always goes in last)