Fourth National IPM Symposium


Fourth National IPM
Symposium/Workshop
2003



 Session: WeedSOFT: A New Approach in Integrated Weed Management
Wednesday 10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Organizer(s):
Christy L. Sprague (csprague@uiuc.edu)




Christy L. Sprague ,  Alex R. Martin ,  Chris Boerboom ,  Anita Dille ,  James Kells ,  Bill Johnson ,  and Brent Sellers [Download Presentation/Summary ]
    WeedSOFT® is a Windows based weed management support system originally developed at the University of Nebraska. Over the last few years, seven states in the North Central region have worked to regionalize this program. This effort has resulted in each cooperating state having a version of WeedSOFT that addresses its unique soil and climatic conditions, weed species and crop production practices. This regional project involves Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska and Wisconsin. WeedSOFT consists of two modules, Advisor and WeedVIEW. Advisor supports recommendations for preemergence, postemergence, and preemergence followed by postemergence weed management strategies in crops specific to individual states. WeedVIEW provides visual images and descriptions of specific weeds to aid in weed identification. Advisor computes a crop yield loss and dollar loss based on weed density, weed-free yield goal, and expected crop price. Weed management strategies evaluated include cultivation, banded-herbicide applications, broadcast herbicide applications, and combinations of these tactics. The user may specify herbicide price, seed cost associated with herbicide-resistant crops, application cost, cultivation cost, and row spacing. Advisor then ranks the available strategies, including cultivation and the various herbicide treatments in the order of net return or crop yield depending on the user’s preference. Additional herbicide treatment selection criteria based on user input include soil properties, rotational crop, ground and surface water based restrictions, and crop and weed growth stage. Output includes an ordered ranking of weed management strategies based on net return or crop yield and a detailed economic and efficacy analysis of individual treatments. In addition, an estimate of each treatment’s effect on the weed seedbank is provided. WeedSOFT is also beneficial in a teaching environment. There are several biological principles that can be illustrated using WeedSOFT. These include: weed-crop interactions, the influence production practices have on crop competitiveness, and the influence that environmental factors such as soil properties and precipitation have on herbicide efficacy and rotational crops.