Missed a Weed Last Year?

Sunday afternoon I was working over a field that will be planted to sweet corn later this month. I grow sweet corn under contract for Bird Eye Foods in Waseca. They have farmers scheduled to plant sweet corn from early May until about the middle of June. They spread the plantings out so the harvest will be spread out. They know how many tons they can harvest and process in a day so that determines how many acres they have farmers plant each day.

As I was working the field, I noticed this little patch of giant ragweed growing in the field. It sure looks like there was one weed that was missed last year and produced a lot of seed. Maybe a giant ragweed germinated when the herbicide effectiveness decreased or maybe a weed was under the crop canopy and did not get covered with the herbicide. It sure demonstrates how quickly the weed population can increase if you let weeds produce seed for even one year!