Some folks may think of tumbleweeds as just ghostly balls of fluff that float innocently across the prairie like overgrown dust bunnies. In reality, they are rolling bombs of resistant weeds that can scatter their seeds for miles.

Bob Leisy is a business representative with BASF based in Colorado who talked about the effort to control resistant tumbleweeds at the recent BASF “Science Behind the Advanced Acre” media event before Commodity Classic.

“A lot of our kochia turns to tumbleweeds,” he said. “In the fall, once the plant dies off, the wind breaks it off and then that plant distributes seed as it rolls across the field.” Those tumbleweeds can spread about 100,000 seeds of glyphosate-resistant kochia as they roll, so Bob says they are working with growers to spray for kochia earlier than ever before to try and control it. “We’re looking at using 12-16 ounces of Clarity, a dicamba product from BASF, to put some residual in the ground that will kill the kochia as it begins to sprout.”

Listen to an interview with Bob here: [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/basf/classic-14-basf-bob-leisy.mp3″ text=”Interview with Bob Leisy, BASF Business Representative”]
BASF at the 2014 Commodity Classic Photos