What is this weed?

[ponytug]

After following your link out, I am having second thoughts about using it as feed. Apparently it can have nitrate levels high enough to be toxic... especially around bloom which is when I've been feeding it. Now I'm not sure how it got here unless as a noxious seed in the grain.

It is a common weed. Just having your pigs disturb the soil would be enough to get it started. A lot of farmers have trouble with it as a weed because it grows so quickly and in many areas it has evolved to be Roundup(tm) resistant.

Depending on the feed, I guess it is possible for it to have turned up via feed, but I have seen it growing practically everywhere around the US. It generally isn't the right size seed (they are tiny!) to pass through a combine or harvester, which would screen them out.

Any physical method works well to get rid of it, but then reseeding with something else to help out compete it helps prevent regrowth. Mulching helps shade it out. (Straw bedding for the pigs?)

All the best,

Peter

 

[Jstpssng]

7 minute diagnosis. Ain't TBN fantastic?

I could probably have figured out what it was myself, and read the sanitized clinical description to find out what it was. Instead I got the answer from people who deal with it, and who would have been the

It is a common weed. Just having your pigs disturb the soil would be enough to get it started. A lot of farmers have trouble with it as a weed because it grows so quickly and in many areas it has evolved to be Roundup(tm) resistant.

Depending on the feed, I guess it is possible for it to have turned up via feed, but I have seen it growing practically everywhere around the US. It generally isn't the right size seed (they are tiny!) to pass through a combine or harvester, which would screen them out.

Any physical method works well to get rid of it, but then reseeding with something else to help out compete it helps prevent regrowth. Mulching helps shade it out. (Straw bedding for the pigs?)

All the best,

Peter

I hadn't considered that in bold, but you are probably right. With the exception of last year's pig pen, most of the area where it's growing was tilled this year. I still have the mower on and it won't take long to knock down the areas I can get at. I had already planned to do a cover crop this fall, so that should help knock it back.

My field is only two acres so I should be able to keep after it.

 

[K5lwq]

I would spray the whole place with Butyrac with a little surfactant. That should take care it.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

My experience with pigs, is that if it's edible, they will root it up an eat it.

 

[old and tired]

Pull it out and throw it on the burn pile. If you pull and drop it on the ground - it will most likely re-root itself. The seeds in the head of the dead plant will grow next year, too. If you cut it off at the ground, it will re-sprout (you got to cut it below ground). I deal with it yearly.

LibertyLink can be used to kill it if it's over a large area. You do NOT want it to go to seed... (can produce 50,000/plant).

 

[Egon]

If the pigs like it encourage it’s growth and save on the feed bill.

Amaranth is one of the new highly desired grains for the human market.