GREENVILLE — OSU Extension, Darke County will hold a very important meeting regarding the infestation of Waterhemp in Darke County.

The meeting will take place at the Anderson Marathon Ethanol plant on Tuesday, Feb. 7 at 6 p.m. Dr. Mark Loux and Dr. Jeff Stachler will discuss the situation the county is in, identification, biology and strategies for control.

“This meeting will be critical to your success in trying to control this very aggressive weed,” said Sam Custer, Extension Educator, Agriculture & Natural Resources.

To reserve your seat call the extension office at 937-548-5215 or download a flyer at the darke.osu.edu website.

“I completed the Fall Soybean Weed Survey in Darke County with the assistance of Weed Scientist, Dr. Jeff Stachler, Darke County native and Auglaize County Extension Educator. The good news is that we have several parts of the county where growers are managing their resistant weed problems. The assumption is that most of Ohio soybeans are RoundupReady, and that if weeds are still in the soybean field at the end of the season, then there must have been a failure of the system – not always correct but then we are making assumptions that may not be too far off,” said Custer.

“We drove an 89-mile loop and evaluated 91 soybean fields for all weed species, because of the concern for resistant Waterhemp showing up in Western Ohio we looked at all 309 fields in the loop to determine if there was Waterhemp in the field,” he said. “We found only 12 percent of the 91 fields completely void of weeds and volunteer corn compared to about 40 percent the previous two years. An occasional weed or corn plant could be found in another 15 percent of the fields.”

“Waterhemp is much different than the dreaded Palmer Amaranth, and is a severe problem. We found Waterhemp in 66 of the 309 total fields we drove by in the 89-mile loop. Our estimate is that 44 percent of the fields in the north and western part of the county are infested,” he said.