Let me tell you in advance, I have a brief statement here, but in advance that I won't be able to take any questions because we're running on a very tight schedule with regard to our arrival in South Carolina. An agreement has been reached among the bipartisan leadership of the Congress to introduce and seek to enact a resolution authorizing the continued presence and mission of the U.S. peacekeeping forces in Lebanon. When I have substantial reservations about parts of this resolution, reservations which I've made clear to the leadership, I am pleased that this agreement among the congressional leadership supporting our presence and policies in Lebanon has been reached, and I would be willing to sign the proposed resolution while expressing my reservations if it is passed in the form that has been presented to me this morning. I'm especially pleased that this proposed resolution not only supports our policies in Lebanon but now enables us to advance United States peacekeeping interests on the solid bipartisan basis that has been the traditional hallmark of American foreign policy. It's all explained in the resolution.


Do you know what these are? Do these look like the moderately expensive and kind of hard to find Xenoblade and Splatoon 2 themed pro controllers for the Nintendo Switch? Or do they look just a little strange? Can you tell which one is actually the $20 knockoff? They both are actually. These are both fake. But my curiosity peaked when I saw these controllers online. Not only did they have motion controls, not only did they have HD rumble, but they also featured an NFC chip reader, meaning I can use my amiibos on these things. And they're only $20. What was the catch?  There has to be something wrong with these and all of the knockoff controllers that I have in front of me. And that is what we're going to get to the bottom of today and I'm going to rank every single one of these knockoffs from best to worst and let you know if it's actually worth buying any of them. But before we get to any of that, I actually have a sponsor for this video. Forget everything you know about mobile games because one of the most ambitious RPG projects of 2019 has just released and it's going to change your perception on mobile gaming. It's called Raid Shadow Legends. Mike and James talked about this game and Mike loves it, he still plays it. And then I saw even John Tron is playing Raids. I was like, okay, I have to check this out and see what it's all about. And the best part is, unlike these $20 controllers, which are still cheap, Raid is completely free. Trust me, I've never spent money on a mobile game and I don't intend to start now. It has a pretty great storyline. The graphics surprised me. There's giant boss fights, PVP battles and hundreds of champions to collect and customize. Oh, and no one's joined my clan yet, so it would be great if you searched up the beat-em-ups clan and joined me. I'll be accepting people over the next couple days. And you guys know how this works by now. If you click my special specific link, I only mine in the description and download the game. You will get 50,000 silver immediately and a free Epic Champion. So thank you Raid for sponsoring the video with your free fun game.  And now this isn't a Kevin Kensen video, although he has beat me to the punch with literally every one of these controllers. Even Spawnwave uploaded a video like two days ago of this one, which by the way, only came today in the mail. I had it on order forever. And I've already synced them all up to my switch and oh boy, let me talk about that when I go through these controllers. It's not as easy syncing these cheap knockoff controllers as it should be. So I want to start with the box. And now because these are Chinese and they're translated into English, it's kind of hard to figure out what they mean sometimes. And I feel like most of it, they're just lying. Not so much with these ones. They did lie. I was lied to. But with a lot of these, there's just a lot of lying going on China. I might want to cut it back on the fibs. To start with, we got compatible with all games, which has on its card case. I don't know what that means exactly, but I'm going to assume it basically means compatible with the switch and all the games on the switch includes motion controls, HD rumble built in amiibo functionality and more.  We're going to get to that built in battery can last 20 hours. I haven't tried using these for 20 hours. I don't know how true that claim is, but I wouldn't hold them to their word at this point. When your product is for a Nintendo system, but you can't sell it using the word Nintendo, you know, something fishy is going on, but they're very comfortable. Again, this is an actual pro controller for those that watched the video where I drilled into my hand and got blood everywhere. I was changing the skin of both these joy cons and this pro controller. So this is the original actual pro controller with some third party knockoff skin, but that's beside the point. It still feels the same. It plays the same. It's exactly the same. And if you want to learn how to do this, by the way, I'll leave a link down below and at the end of the video, so you can check that out. Also, I drill into my hand and that's always eventful.  The buttons look exactly the same. The toggles are done. You need to say it again, exactly the same. The triggers feel, I'm not saying it a fourth time, that you can't tell the difference just by holding one of these things. That's why I said if I had just seen this at a swap meet and picked it up for 20 bucks, I would have thought I got a steal. I mean, even right there, when I synced it up to the system, it recognizes it as the Splatoon controller. Everything about this is as legit as it can be. I'm not sure how they've managed to do this, but I do have one theory. So everything about these two controllers are great, other than this. Like I'm not sure if the NFC Amoeba Reader is hidden somewhere weird on the controller. I've tried just about everything and I can't get them to scan in. If I switch over to my actual pro controller, it works immediately. I switch back to my cheapy cheapy fake fake. It says built-in Amoeba functionality.  Like it's just a flat out lie. It says it on the box, which I paid extra to get the box, by the way. It says it on the box. It says it online. It says it everywhere. They are supposed to be able to read. You can actually kind of see through the case. It's almost like a clear case and it almost looks like there is nothing in that spot. Every single part of these feel legit. Even the cases look legit. Everything about them is a pro controller. The only thing that it can't do is read Amoebas. Other than that, if you're looking for a cheap pro controller and you want to risk maybe them showing up kind of broken or maybe not showing up at all, 20 bucks ain't bad. Let's move on to something that is bad. That's very bad. These Joy-Cons. Now, to the untrained eye, yet again, these might actually just look like normal Joy-Cons. But take a closer look. They're massive. These are the extra-large Joy-Cons, which I actually heard about thanks to Kevin Kensen. To the point where, and again, I talked about syncing these controllers and how much of an issue it was. With these pro controllers, the only way I could get them to sync was with the USB cord. Hooking it straight up into the switch. With these, I actually couldn't figure it out for the life of me. And they didn't come with any kind of instructions. At least mine didn't. So I had to actually watch Kevin's video to find out how to sync these things. On this one, I had to hold the white button and the home button down at the same time. And on this one, I had to hold the left on the D-pad and the capture button at the same time. And I had to try that about seven times before it finally worked. Like I thought Kevin was trolling me. So if we can get these to turn on somehow right now, that would be great. I got one of them on. Okay, finally. Takes forever. Now these are nowhere near as nice as the pro controllers. They are, they are no way compared in my opinion. Let me go through everything that's wrong with them. For starters, the HD rumble. It feels loose. It feels weak. It feels really off. It feels like there's a goldfish inside each one of these that's just flapping around sporadically at random intervals. It's not a very strong or very good rumble at all. And it's definitely not a HD rumble. They are extremely light, which ain't necessarily a bad thing, but it makes them feel really cheap. The plastic feels really cheap and they just feel really cheap. But the D-pad here is awful, truly awful. It doesn't have a nice feel to it. It doesn't click well. It feels weirdly spongy, but they do work both like this in my hands and clipped into the switch. However, and this right one is kind of a pain in the butt. Really have to force it. And it was really hard to get off the switch. Like I am pushing this down with a lot of strength right now. There we go.  They are constantly on. And the reason for that is they don't actually connect to the switch. They're still technically operating as if they're wireless, as if they're still in my hands. There's no way to actually sync them up to the switch like that. You even have to charge them separately by the USB ports. Meaning you need two of these USB cords plugged in and charging these things separately, which is very annoying. And they don't charge up when they're connected to the switch and in the dock. They are absolutely your responsibility to separately charge up when you're done playing. And they don't last long. Again, according to Kevin, I watched his video. They last about four hours at best. So when it comes to battery life and charging the battery, they are not fun to deal with at all. But for what it's worth on the bright side, I do kind of like the way they look on the switch. It obviously makes the switch seem a lot wider and they just sort of are comfortable. Do I recommend them? No, not at all. Yeah, really don't cheap out on Joy-Cons. Now this one is stuck permanently to my switch. Oh man. So at this point, I feel like I've left two elephants in the room. Let's start with the Xbox controller. Why has there been an Xbox One controller sat on this table the whole video? Well, because this Xbox One controller isn't actually an Xbox One controller. As you can probably guess by the theme of the video, it's a switch controller. And this one also came in recently. And I haven't even taken off this blue plastic wrap yet. That was really satisfying.  Now out of every controller on this table right now, and I'm even the other elephant in the room, which I'll get to, I have to say this one feels the cheapest. This feels like a $7 controller to hold in my hand. But it also feels pretty much exactly like an Xbox One controller. Just a lot less quality. It is pretty much the same mold. It just feels like it was made with the cheapest ingredients you could possibly find. Let's go ahead and turn on this Xbox One controller by holding down this metal button. We have a really cheap looking middle button with some really cheap lights flashing around it. The B button, and this really doesn't matter, but the letter B is completely misaligned with the middle of the button, and it's really throwing off my OCD. So we're gonna just not look at that anymore. It just plays even more into how cheap this thing looks and feels. Oh, I was supposed to be ranking these, by the way, and I forgot. So the pro controllers, yeah, they're really nice. These Joy-Cons, no, they're really bad. So let's keep it going.  And one thing I do like, and I really should have tested this on a racing game, although I imagine the control inputs are just going to register as, I'll tell you what I mean. These, all over the place, these triggers are the only triggers I have found so far on any Switch Joy-Con, knockoff controller, anything that actually pressurized. And they do feel nice, honestly. They have some nice give to them. And again, even the motion controls aren't working anymore. I may have spoke too soon. Wait, hold on. Did I turn motion controls off or something? There we go. Okay. I thought I'd broken the controller. In this one, it's not as good as the pro controllers, but it's still pretty good and very usable. If I was handed this controller by my big brother to play really any two-player game on the console, which is where these knockoff controllers are most likely going to be used. Let's not beat around the bush. I probably wouldn't ever feel like I was at a huge disadvantage. I would still really only have myself to blame. I would still blame the controller, don't get me wrong, but the merit to it is questionable. I'm going to put that squarely in the middle. Now, we have one more. An old boy. It's a good one. This is an Ouya controller that has been reprogrammed and recolored, re-skinned, and repurposed as a Nintendo Switch controller. I really don't know why, because this is by far the Ouya controller was by far the worst controller of all time. And there are some shocking controllers out there.  It feels horrible. It's just, there's no good way to hold it actually. I'm trying to figure out how my brain wants to hold it and there's no good way. My hands don't fit in this thing. Kind of want to wrap around and grip on almost like I'm holding a firearm. And this ridge here is almost sharp in the hands. Like it almost, it rubs against the bone. That's it. That is the best way I can explain it. Every point of this controller, other than right here, rubs against the bones of your hand. Like this controller is making me angry. Just trying to explain how awful it is. It is, it, freaking triggers man. The way that they kind of just sit flush on the top of this controller and then press into the, like they kind of sink down, like into a pit of emptiness. It's so ugly. Like everything about it. What a waste of space. Everything about this is just a waste of plastic, but you know the worst part of this controller. Listen to the sound this controller makes when you click in the thumb sticks. That is the loudest. Like I can't even hear myself talking over this. Could you imagine trying to subtly and quietly play your switch in bed next to your wife or partner or just in the same house at like 2 a.m. in the morning.  Or I guess you better hope that no one buys you this thing. Not that I have, I have any idea why anyone would buy this thing other than for the lulls, which is exactly what I've done. So I shouldn't even be this angry because it's not like I ever have to use this thing again and I can go out and burn it later on. You know what? This is going all the way down here. It is the most uncomfortable and I'm, and I, you know who I'm mad at? Oh yeah.  I think they just took one look at it and they thought the design was cool and they went with that. I don't, I don't know why I got so angry about that.  Do they? They do. They're not able to actually say the word Nintendo or anything, which means they didn't print the word Nintendo on here, which means these are like I legitimately at the very least bought the skins. I mean, that's a good buy. That really isn't bad. Just stay away from this. It's the point, the point to my entire video is buy this maybe. Don't ever buy this ever. Not even a maybe, never. I don't care. Like, subscribe, hair flip. I'm Kevin Kensen and you've been watching the Kevinator. How does he end his videos? Kevin, you need to end your video. Okay, I do. Hey big Kev, I'm not sure how you end your videos.  Thanks, thanks for watching. Yeah, so now you know. Oh man. He's going to get that message and be like, what? How are you? Yeah, I'm good. What were you doing? Driving. Oh yeah, don't talk and drive. I don't know how you sign out your videos, but I decided from now on you have to sign them out by saying I'm the Kevinator and I'll see you next time. I mean, that's up to you. You can play around with it as long as you end every video with it from now on. It doesn't sound like a yes. You're only going to disappoint me in half a million people. It's fine. Okay, so I told Kevin that I was pretty sure that this was a mostly real legit pro controller and he told me that he really wanted me to open it up and find out. And I really don't know what I'm looking at. So I'm going to call Spawnwave and send him a photo of the board and see if he can tell me if this thing is real or not. Hi, how are you? Good, how are you? I'm good. I'm just creating the most ambitious crossover in a Nintendo Switch controller video. The most ambitious crossover? Yeah, I already called Kevin Kenson. Now I'm calling you. Did I tell you about those controllers I found on AliExpress? Those the pro controllers? So I got them and I've been messing around with them and I was convinced that they were actual pro controllers just with the NFC chip taken out. Can you tell just by looking at that? Yeah, actually, I noticed that too just a moment ago. Yeah, I just couldn't be bothered opening that one again. Well, that answered that. Thanks. Oh yeah, no problem.  When you look behind the right thumb stick, it says thanks to all the game fans. Well, this Chinese knockoff board tried to recreate that Easter egg, but they misspelled it. To mix two all game fans, El. They just put an L on the end. Well, they fooled me. I still stand by it. It's a very, very good fake. It's clearly using all the right parts. Something I didn't think about is there is supposed to be a Nintendo Switch logo right here and there's not. So, um, yeah, whatever. If you want to see me open up a different pro controller and change the skin as well as do this stuff, click or tap right here, subscribe, half lip all over it. I'd really appreciate it. Oh, and remember to tweet at Kevin Kensen every single day until he finally ends at least one video with you. You've been watching the Kevinator and I'll see you next time.


Good evening and welcome. My name is David Russell. I'm an extension specialist covering statewide weed management responsibilities. I cover corn, soybeans, small grains, forage pastures, and rights-aways. Just to tell you a little bit about myself. I was raised in Mississippi on a cow-calf operation. Spent several years studying forage agronomy and weed science at Mississippi State University before coming here to Auburn University last July. So I have a great appreciation for the beef cattle industry and the land that we manage. And then our topic today is weed controlling pastures. A few of the things I'd like to cover are the different components of our weed management strategies and forages. Go over a few definitions. I think it's always helpful to talk through scenarios that each of you probably face on a daily basis regarding weeds. I'd like to break those between broadleaves and grasses and then end by just sharing some ongoing research that our program is currently working on. So I realize that many of you here obviously are because you're part of the BCAA. You're a member or you have some association with this organization. So it's obvious that you have a vested interest in promoting Alabama's cattle industry. But this is just a reminder that your cattle herd, with all the genetic improvements that you're making, studying all the EPDs, they're only as good as the diet that they're on or the forage that they're grazing. Basically your herd isn't going to reach its full potential on poor forage. Many of us are cattle producers first and forage managers second. So I'm here to kind of encourage not a complete flip of those roles, but to just stress the importance of forage management. So having good quality forage pastures is part of what creates this overall herd health. Because our forages really are an asset and it's an asset like most if neglected it can depreciate. So I'd like to pose this question. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the term weed control? Do you think of bush hogging? Does it bring back memories of hand pulling weeds in either your garden or your flower bed? Based on my conversations just the last few years, I'd argue that many of us think of herbicide use, you know, what can I spray that's going to kill this weed? It's probably the most common phrase I hear. I get calls, I get texts, emails, they want to know number one, what is it and how to kill it. But I would encourage you rather than just looking for a simple answer that involves herbicides. Let's look at a systems approach. We'll go through some of these rather quickly so we can get into the field scenarios, but I want to just kind of set the stage for what I mean by integrated pest management. In this case, we're talking about weeds, but it can mean any kind of pest like insect pest. But IPM, again, regarding weeds, it's basically an ecosystem based strategy that focuses on long term prevention of pest or their damage through a combination of techniques. And we emphasize that combination of techniques. So it's not just a herbicide solution for a particular weed. It's a logical control, manipulating habitat, modifying your practices and so on. So to start with, the first of about four components are is the preventative measures. Obviously, the name speaks for itself. These are measures that are going to prevent weed from establishing in a crop in the first place. And we're talking certified weed free seed. We're cleaning farm equipment. And I just illustrate these by the pictures here. If any of you have run a tractor bush hog through broomsedge fields this time of year, you know that the airborne wind dispersed seed or floating through the air and that will obviously catch on the front end of your tractor. Heaven forbid, it's cogongrass seed that are floating around in the spring time of the year, especially in South Alabama. We've all seen, you know, this center picture here where the grass and seed from clippings accumulate around the PTO there and on top of the bush hogs and other equipment. Here's another example of this picture on the right. This is actually a picture of myself. I'm in a sandbar field site where we were conducting research and I was absolutely covered by this sandbar all over my pants, my shirt, even my snake shaft. So I spent quite a bit of time getting these things off because I did not want to take these to another location. I know how hard it is to control some of those sandbars. So these are just some examples, preventing weeds from spreading in the first place. Secondly, let's talk cultural practices. What do I mean by cultural practices? These are basically techniques that involve maintaining field conditions such that weeds are less likely to establish. I don't want anyone to expect that if you call me up or send me an email about a particular weed species that any particular herbicide prescription is going to work when you have fields that are over-grazed or you have bare soil. So cultural practices are basically just crop rotations, grazing management, control burns, proper soil fertility. Take these pictures for example. The one on the left, again, you can't expect herbicides to perform like they are designed to do on a particular weed population when there's no biological competition there to compete with any weeds that may be emerging. I wonder that fields like this on the left that are over-grazed, those are the tight fields that we see Buttercup come in in the spring, Foxtail in the summer, and who knows what all else, what other kind of weed species we see in fields like this. So proper grazing management, I hope you're already practicing that with your cattle herd. But always thinking about leaving the proper forage height because that goes a long way by itself just having a good forage canopy to compete against a lot of these aggressive weeds. And then when you combine something like herbicides in with that good healthy forage stand that works together even better. Mechanical, you know, I think these are obvious means of controlling weeds like tillage and mowing, hand pulling. I know many of us enjoy getting on the tractor and bush hog and running a bush hog across our field to make these three, four or five foot tall weeds go down to a pretty clean pasture really quick, but I want you to understand that this comes at a cost as well. Last year, ALDOT estimated mowing cost to be somewhere in that $40 per acre range. You know, I know many of us as managers don't necessarily consider our time, monetary value or worth a lot, but it does cost, you know, to run that equipment. Not only that, you know, it's removing a lot of our desirable forages at the same time. I'm not saying that something like bush hogging doesn't have a fit. It does for sure, but it needs to be incorporated and not relied solely upon as a primary means of control because when you talk, especially perennial weeds like the brush species or dog fin or anything like that. Sure, you'll set it back or suppress it for a little while, but those perennial weeds are still coming back from roots. And so really you're spending that $40 per acre multiple times a year. Whereas if you combine that with herbicide or some other type practice, you could go, you can make your money work a lot better. Other mechanical forms, obviously a hoe works well on species like thistle. Let's not wait until thistles get this big late in the spring. I realize that these biennial plants are emerging right now in the rosette stage. And so this is just an example of a good time to use mechanical control to target species like thistle. And then lastly, obviously the chemical methods of the use of herbicides basically. And before anyone considers using chemical control, and many of you I'm sure already have sprayer systems that you utilize on your pastures, but there are several requirements. I'll say several. There are four main requirements that I like for us to keep in mind. And these are key if you're going to expect that herbicides are to perform like they should. And number one, we want to identify what the weed is. We can't prescribe any particular herbicide if we don't know what we're targeting. Next is proper herbicide selection. That's an obvious. We obviously want to calibrate our equipment. We can make sure we get the right weed. We can pick our correct herbicide, but if we're not applying it correctly and that product didn't get to the target as intended, then you've done no good. And lastly is to know your desired forage. So there are many herbicides that can do well on a particular weed species, but I wouldn't advise anybody to go spray pastore to target foxtail or Johnson grass in a tall fescue pasture. All right, so we're not going to be happy with the results from our pastore on tall fescue. That's just an example. So there are certain herbicides that are meant to be applied in certain forage species. Regarding weed identification, these are a few resources I'd just like to share with you. These are three main books that I personally keep with me all the time. I go to them regularly when it comes to at least narrowing down particular plant species that I am uncertain of. Also, there are a couple websites and apps that I use. One is Southeastern Flora. This primarily focuses on the native plants of the Southeast, but it's got a good library of pictures with scientific names there that you can go to, to at least help you narrow down. And then iNaturalist.org, that's an online website, and they have an app. I have found really good results from this. If I can take a really good picture of a particular weed and it's identifying parts from the field, I can upload those and it will give me a list, basically a short list of the possibilities for that particular plant. And it really helps me at least narrow down whatever that weed is, at least to a specific genus, if not the similar species. So those are good ones to keep in mind that I wanted to share with you. All right, now this is not by any means a complete exhaustive list of all the products available in forages, but it is most. So I show you this because what I found that is that if a producer has a sprayer equipment to begin with, if you're sitting here thinking, sure, I'm familiar with some of these herbicides, I use some of these herbicides on my place. If you spray anything at all in your forages, you're probably most familiar with at least two of these products. And you want to guess which ones. If I didn't have this list up here with what are the two main herbicides that you are probably already familiar with. It's likely to 4D and round up. Most folks at least know those two and then maybe graze on next. All right, so my point is that just because you may have tried either of those and your weeds keep coming back that doesn't necessarily mean that it can't be killed. Understand that there are many factors involved when we're talking plant physiology and the use of herbicides. You have to consider the plants life cycle. If it's a perennial or annual or by annual, you've got to consider environmental conditions. Did you mix the right amount? What's your sprayer output? Did you calibrate your sprayer? Are you applying it properly? So it's not as simple as pouring a couple cups into a tank and knowing that your tank covers X amount of acres and just heading out and spray. There's some homework that needs to be done on the front end. And proper stewardship is necessary. Once you've identified the weed, you selected your herbicide, you know your desired forage, you must be mindful of the fate of that herbicide. So in other words, it helps to have an understanding of the product. Does this herbicide have soil residual? Is it foliar active? Is it both? Is it only a pre-emergence herbicide? So, and I'm sure many of you are probably aware that much of the hay or manure from fields that are treated with Grazon next or P plus D can affect sensitive broadleaf plants even months after application. Just like the soybean in the picture, it was probably planted into an old pasture that had a history of Grazon next use. The picture on the right is a tomato plant or was a tomato plant where the landowner used mulch and either hay or manure that was treated with Grazon next and put that around his plants. When that grass material begins to break down and decompose, then that product is still within those cell walls and it eventually leaches down into the soil and it takes time for a lot of these products to degrade either through rainfall or dilution or UV degradation. So knowing what herbicides are using and stewarding it property is, it goes a long way. And please don't apply herbicides like this. Agriculture in general gets a black eye often from the general public who may not understand what we do. So we sure don't need anything like this, especially if you're near the public. In this case, you see the fines there in the in the top. Right up here in this area, these are driftable fines that are carried by the wind. In this case, the fines from 24D or dicamba drifted across the wood lot there and settled onto a neighbor's cotton field. And I can guarantee you it did not end well for that crop. So just be mindful and steward your products correctly. This is the cluster nozzle from that application. If you have any of these, I would encourage you to go throw these away and get you a better boomless tip that will put the spray where it needs to go. There are definitely better boomless tips out there than this cluster nozzle. All right, so let's talk weeds. In the time remaining, let's think about the weed issues in terms of broadleafs or grasses. In general, pasture weed control decisions are largely based on the visual thresholds and intuition. And this buttercup is a prime example. You know, we don't often think about buttercup control in our pasture until March or April in the spring time when our fields turn yellow. All right, so again, that's why I say it's largely based on visual thresholds and intuition. How many of us know that, you know, thistles are another example. I want to make you aware of some of these, you know, thistles can be treated now while they're at the rosette stage rather than waiting until the spring when they're four foot tall and hard to kill. All right. Along the same lines, buttercup thistles, other cool season annuals are already growing in most areas right now. So it bottom line, it helps to know what to expect so that you can be proactive. All right, buttercup. There are about a dozen or more species here within the state. The common are the hairy or the bulbous buttercup. Many of them are actually perennial, especially when we have mild winters. We don't get a true winter kill from those and they will come back year after year from roots, many of these species. Believe it or not, right now is not a bad time to spray if you're in the northern half of the state. Last year we conducted a trial here in North Alabama, which I'll show you here shortly. But using something as simple as one pint per acre of 2-4-D, you know, one of the two herbicides that I think we're probably most familiar with, or one pint per acre of Grazon next, it goes a long way in the fall of the year. If you understand that many of these annuals and perennials, the cool season weeds like this are already emerging.  So understand that many of these are already coming up. And 2-4-D is cheap. You know, four to six dollars per acre is not a bad treatment at all. Whenever you can control that at the juvenile stage right now, rather than waiting until buttercup and other things are a foot tall in the spring. Grazon next is still fairly affordable at under $10 per acre right now. So this is a trial that we ran last year on the station, where we just simply demonstrated that if you if you apply in November, December, and I think we sprayed again in March with something as simple as low rates of 2-4-D, Grazon next or weed master, we have good results going into the spring and this allows our grass forage to emerge without weed competition, better and quicker in the spring. So this was an application May last year, December, mid December, and this photo was actually taken in May. So about five months after application and that rate of 2-4-D at the very least is a really cheap option. And as you can see there in the strips, it did a really good job with control. And to note with that to the use of 2-4-D at that time was really safe on a lot of our clover species, especially the established perennial clovers. So if you're concerned about that 2-4-D is a really good option. Here's one that we often see in the springtime of the year or late winter bull rush. It comes up in the low wet areas. Believe it or not, 1-4-2-4-D is by far the best treatment that I've ever found on this scourpus species. All right, apply that in February for most areas across the state and it does a really good job. You can use the ester formulation in the cool months of the year. And again, it's a pretty cheap option. The only alternative for a weed like this is to drain that soil because this bull rush, the rush species just thrives in heavy waterlogged soil with poor internal drainage. And understand too that if you control something like this in a low wet area, there's got to be something better that's got to take its place. So if you look at that bottom picture, that looks to be an area that I would probably consider controlling because I look at the adjacent forage and think, well, if that bull rush was gone, at least I could probably oversee some annual ryegrass or for long-term solutions if you're in the northern half of the state, we could at least have maybe tall fescue or Dallas grass in that site that would tolerate heavy clay or waterlogged soils. So again, 2-4-D in February, a really good treatment for that one. Dog fennel. This is a good one. Cedarweed is probably what we're most familiar with. One of the most common broadleaf weeds in permanent pastures. You know, many of us run a bush hog across fields like this once or twice a year. Pastures look really good after you mow it down when dog fennel is four to five foot tall. But what good have you really done then? All right, yeah, you've set it back, you've suppressed it, but if you bush hog, you're removing some forage as well. And since it's a perennial, it's going to come right back before the end of the summer. So if you can combine some herbicide with that, it goes a long way. All right, this, my recommendation, I really like Pickle Ram on this. I know that P plus D is a restricted use pesticide, so you need your applicator's license to use that. But in my opinion, it is much better than Grey's on Next. Grey's on Next is actually pretty weak on dog fennel. And honestly, the new Duracore is pretty weak by itself on dog fennel, even up to 20 ounces per acre. So if you're using Grey's on Next or you've already got Duracore on hand and you just have to use it, you're going to have to put something like pasture guard with it. All right, my recommendation would be to go straight weed master when the plants are young, you know, under 18 inches and actively growing. Or Grey's on P plus D, because I just think that the Pickle Ram is much more selective on this particular species. And the reason why I say wait until it gets 18 inches is because you get more herbicide translocation. So there's a ratio difference between that perennial root that's underground and what's above ground. So the more you have, in essence, the more above ground growth you have to be able to apply herbicide to the more herbicide than can then be translocated to that root for an effective keel. Here's some infield pictures of Grey's on P plus D that have been applied. This is 35 days after application and you can see the dog fennel was at least 18 inches at the time we applied this and to note for something like this a field scenario like this horse nettle is also in the mix. We had some pig weed in this situation so getting all those when they're young and actively growing is really good and effective.  Hopefully the forages are taking advantage of increased sunlight and the resources that the weeds were getting. Here's one that I wouldn't say is widespread widespread, but I do get several calls of Brazilian vervein each year. This is an annual or a week perennial. It tends to perineate, especially through our mild winters. Grey's on Next or Duracore is exceptional on this species. I would probably catch this when it's 18 inches or less with 1.2 to 1.5 pints of Grey's on Next. It does a really good job on the verveins and similar species. Understand there are some restrictions regarding haying, seven day haying restrictions. On the label, if you look at the Grey's on Next label, which if you use any herbicides, I encourage you to read the label thoroughly. There's a 14 day waiting period before cutting. And that's simply to allow that herbicide more time to do what it's going to do within the plant. Again, back to what I was talking about. Proper herbicide stewardship with the use of Grey's on Next use caution when moving cattle from one field to another, especially if you have sensitive broadleaf plants. There's just some more pictures of the vervein. It's got a typical square stem. Thorny brush. I know many of us face briars, dewberry, blackberry, probably growing up on fence lines, coming up in permanent pastures. If you're in the black belt, for sure there are the rose species like multi-floor rose and mccartney rose. And I'd like to point out the differences here if you look at the top left. It's really good ID characteristic of multi-floor rose, Cherokee rose, and then the mccartney rose, many of which you typically see along fence lines. And in permanent pastures it can be really tough to kill. And if you think you're going to run a disc across that site, that picture there on the right of a root has been ripped up out of the ground and look it's still growing and trying to put out a shoot even without a root. So these are really aggressive plants obviously because of the perennial woody nature of its growth habit. And here are just a list of general herbicides that are, at least they have activity on a lot of these woody type brush. Keep in mind that many of these options here have good soil residual. And what I mean by that is that herbicide remains in the soil, active in the soil so that the plant can take it up through the roots. That also means that if you apply too much or in the incorrect manner, it can run downhill with surface water. So be mindful of desirable trees that may be nearby. It's important to follow the label. I'd say for just general woody brush, one of my go-tos is the remedy ultra, especially green ash. It does a really good job. Pasture guard surmount is really good as a fence line vegetation mix and especially a lot of these thorny species. That's a good list to keep in mind right there. But again, I can't stress enough, especially when you're talking the use of arsenal and Velpar and piclaram that does not need to go anywhere near where you have desirable tree species or anywhere that that can run down slope. So please read those labels. All right, the tough one. Removing grasses from grass forage. What I think is the ultimate challenge. You've got foxtails. I'm sorry to say I don't have many good answers for foxtails. Smug grass. All right. Can you tell the difference between smug grass and bahia grass? That's smug grass. That's bahia grass. They look really similar and they're hard to control. Crow foot grass. Crab grass. I think crab grass is really good grazing forage, but many people don't want it in a quality Bermuda grass system. And then broom sage. It's another good example of a perennial grass that's hard to control. And you got throw tall fescue in the mix that, you know, doesn't tolerate a lot of our herbicides that you can put in Bahia or Bermuda. Let's talk about Johnson grass. Johnson grass is an example of one, if you've got Bahia or Bermuda grass and even tall fescue, if you've got Johnson grass in this, Outrider is one that I think does a really good job of selectively controlling Johnson grass. It is, it's almost like this material was meant to be used on Johnson grass, but steward it properly. I got word from Aldot a little while back that three counties on the east central part of the state have experienced resistant Johnson grass along the rights of ways. So generally Johnson grass is most susceptible at the 18 inch stage where it's just entering that boot stage. If you can broadcast Outrider at that rate up to 1.3 ounces per acre. It does a really good job. Keep in mind with Outrider you want that herbicide to sit out there without being mowed so that that herbicide can work properly. Another good option is weed wiper especially if you've got some height separation between Johnson grass and your desirable forages. It's, it's very sensitive to glyphosate around that.  And then, and then this time of the year, what's already starting to germinate is little barley. We've got volunteer annual ryegrass coming up. Many of our brome species are six weeks fescue. All right, in forages and established permanent pastures we only have two labeled true pre-emergence options and those are Prowl, H2O and Resilon. Resilon being the newest herbicide that has just been, that has just received label this year. Prowl can be applied up to 4.2 quarts per acre. Resilon is a program that can go out at three to five ounces, fluid ounces that is per acre, not to exceed six fluid ounces in a 12 month period. And for both of these rainfall is essential. In other words, you want to make sure that when you use any pre-emergent, it has to get out on the ground before that seed starts to germinate. It has to be rainfall incorporated by rainfall before that seed starts to imbibe water. Turning to smutgrass, I know it's one that many of us face in the southern part of the state. It's very hard to control, but we have seen some success with Velpar. I know it is an expensive treatment that not many of us can utilize in our systems, but it does have activity. But I think this is one example of a grassy weed that you have to take a whole systems approach and it's multi-year, it's a multi-year process, especially if you've got thick populations. A lot of work has been done in the University of Florida system where they've looked at Velpar applications through weed wiper and looking at roundup through weed wipers. I think there is a fit. Again, you have to have some height separation there between the smutgrass stems and Bermuda behedgrass stems. So I think a roller wiper has seen some promising results in many of our systems, but again, it takes time. And this is one of those that we're currently working on more options and exploring timing and it's a really difficult one. Again, Velpar is one that is so active that needs good growing conditions to work like it's supposed to. Paspalum species, you know, I'll group these all together because they are difficult to control and the primary two I'm talking about are Dallas grass and Basie grass. All right, if you've got permanent pastures, Dallas grass is a really good forage in my opinion. But if you've got quality Bermuda grass that you're trying to grow for hay or grazing, there has been some success with the use of plateau or pastora in season but understand that this often comes with damage to our Bermuda grass as well. Basie grass is the more difficult one to control. There has been some success with the use of pastora, but again, I don't know how many people could justify the use of this whenever there is a high risk of damage to their forage. All right, so I'm beginning to look at options to use a weed wiper in these type scenarios. Again, the roller wiper, I think there is some success to be had, especially if there's some height separation there. And so we're continuing to work on that but know that right now for Basie grass, there's no good in season selective herbicide option for that. The Broomsej is another one that I'll group into that mix. You know, I've heard all my life it's, if you correct the pH, you know, you'll make the Broomsej go away. Well, that's not really the case. I've spent a lot of time working in the black belt region where we typically get soil pH is upwards of seven and a half and well this picture right here for example is in the middle of the black belt and I think the soil pH there was like 7.8. So it's not just a pH issue. I think again this is one that is a whole systems management approach to control this thing. Proper soil fertility I think is part of this thing where you've got a sample correctly and research has found that the addition of grazing and mowing with nitrogen applications have seen populations diminish. Over several years but again, it's a multi year approach. I do think weed wiper has a fit and we do continue to explore that but I think, again, a combination of managing your cutting frequency, your fertility, your grazing pressure. I think that combined with fertility and herbicide use could be a solution. We just haven't quite figured out what exactly that combination is to be most successful. And here's just a good example to be an advocate for the use of a weed wiper. Look at the height separation here. All right, so this time of the year again back to the visual clues for our weed control. We don't always know that this is out there in a problem until it shows up this time of year but brooms edge has a huge height difference between Bermuda grass behavior grass. This time of year, and as long as it's effectively growing I think something like a weed wiper could be really effective. The last one I'll touch on is Foxtail. For the longest time, the University of Tennessee has made their recommendation as one and a half ounces of pastora plus eight ounces of roundup followed by another one ounce of pastore 14 days later. And this is just in Bermuda grass fields. It's pastore will control tall fish cue and behavior grass, but know that it comes with heavy Bermuda grass stunning as well. And so that's just not a good treatment that I feel confident in even if we get 60 to 70% control of Foxtail. I just don't know how many people are willing to risk their forage for that. Some other ones that we're playing around with it are Resilon, the new one that just came out and does a flam has worked really well on the annual species that's not going to do anything for the perennial plant that's already there coming back from root. But if you can get this product out before seed germinates and include that with good forage canopy. I've seen that combination work fairly well. You know, here's an example there in the in the bottom picture of an application that was made in the fall. And, you know, we're looking at a pretty good control with the following spring when we have good forage cover. The other one is facet, al quinclorac. You can apply those at rates up to 64 fluid ounces. We've seen about three to four weeks worth of suppression from that. And if you bump up the rates to two courts, you're talking maybe 75 to 80% control for about three months. So that seems to be as at least as effective as the pastora. What what benefit we're getting with facet though is that it is a little more safe on our Bermuda grass, Bahia grass and tall fescue even so it's it's all rate dependent. So that's some other work that we're continuing to explore. There's just a list of some things that we're continuing to explore. I want to end right here with this picture that I was really impressed with. This is a bill par application made this year, April one as the not root foxtail seedlings were beginning to emerge. It's a really good job of controlling post emergence, the annual ryegrass that was up, and then it released a really good stand of that Bermuda grass forage through this hay field so I'm going to continue to explore more control for foxtail and some of these troublesome grasses. And know that if you've got any questions feel free to reach out to me. Email me or go to our website to find more information on any of our forage or forage we control recommendations. Thank you for your time.


Today we live in a society where it seems like everything is on demand, so if we want to communicate it's instant We want to download something it's instant, but you know things that take more time to build like human relationships and trust They are not something that we can facilitate with technology like real learning involves understanding which involves Contemplating and that's not like an instant process. You know, there's things that take time I think it's very important for us to realize like happiness For example is something that we feel about gadgets and but it's momentary and it's more like hedonism It's like quick fix which is not bad But real happiness has nothing to do with technology and we certainly can't find it by going out and looking for it The opportunities for food service is first to think about this in a sort of holistic and circular way We in other words is to say that we're going to look at food at more than just something that we have to do Something that has to make sense that has a holistic business model that actually gives back the circular economy Something that is a larger sense of just then just consuming. I think that's an opportunity, but also a challenge There's two major threats in society today One is climate change and co2 pollution burning planet big topic And that's going to be a lot of change for companies like mandatory legislation Regulation of say cruise ships meat production Cars and cities all those things will happen in the next couple years and that's both good and bad But it will also create new opportunities the second real challenge is digital pollution Which essentially is the same thing, but is issues of having too much technology. So surveillance Data tracking loss of privacy abdication people forgetting to do things because they use machines and this whole convergence of humans and machines Like automation. That's a real challenge for jobs So I would say those are the two major challenges for our future the stuff we can deal with but we have to really have foresight You know, we have to understand where things are going This is why I keep saying that having foresight is the most important part of business now on the balance between humans and machines I think there is a trend towards Using technology to dehumanize things because they're more efficient and faster and Sometimes that's that it's okay because we don't really need humans like Google Maps is Dehumanizing in some ways, but we use it in a certain context and then there's another trend to re humanize So some technology really helps us to be human like communication technology that we can connect But sometimes when we take too much of it like social media or online video or your posting Then we disconnect from what used to connect us I think we're going to pay more in the future to have more privacy and to speak to more humans It's going to be more expensive than to go completely with the machines and have it be less expensive So restaurants self-serve with an app. No waiters Just the cooks maybe in the back, but it coming out automatically will be vastly cheaper Because they have less personnel But a lot of people will go prefer to go to a nice place. It has a sommelier And that's also a fragmentation. So I don't think it's really it's a challenge But it's not necessarily bad news. You know, in fact, I think if you position yourself correctly Then you should find a good market


Hello, my name is Dana Jocola and I'm a graduate student working with Dr. Ajay Nair in the Sustainable Vegetable Production Lab at Iowa State University. Today is August 13th and we are here at the Horticulture Research Station in Ames, Iowa, and I wanted to give you a brief update on the research that I'm doing on reduced tillage systems for organic vegetable production. I'd like to acknowledge the Ceres Trust and North Central SARE who have both provided funding for this project, so thanks to those organizations. But while no-till has become relatively common in field crop production in some parts of this country, it has remained relatively absent from organic production, mostly because organic farmers rely on tillage and mechanical cultivation for weed control. However, tillage has a number of adverse effects on soil health and so we're working on systems that will allow us to minimize the tillage. In this study we're going to look at two such systems, no-till and strip-till, in the production of organic broccoli and peppers. So these systems are based on the use of cover crops for weed control. The idea is to grow an in-situ mulch through which you can eventually transplant your crop or plant your seeds. So in this study we seeded rye and vetch last fall on September 12th at a rate of 90 pounds per acre for the rye and 25 pounds per acre for the vetch. You'll notice that the planting date is a little on the earlier end of the spectrum and the seeding rate was a little on the higher end of the spectrum and those are both intentional. They're both required in order to generate sufficient biomass with the cover crop in order to suppress weeds for the subsequent growing season. So the cover crops grew throughout the fall and the spring and then in late May they start to flower. So now when rye reaches anthesis, which is pollen shed, and the vetch reaches early pod stage, they can both be fairly well terminated by mechanically rolling them with a tool called a roller crimper. In this study we have three whole plot treatments. No-till, strip-till, and then conventional-till. The conventional-till is the system used most commonly by organic vegetable growers in the Midwest. Each of those plots were subdividing into two sub-plots to test out two different nitrogen fertilization strategies. In the first we apply the full rate of nitrogen, 150 pounds for broccoli, 80 pounds for pepper, using a granular dehydrated chicken manure product which we banned just before planting. In the second sub-plot we're applying just two-thirds rate of that granular fertilizer pre-plant and then we apply the remainder using fertigation of a liquid fish product in four events starting three weeks after planting and then repeating every ten days for four events. So we've only just begun harvest in the last few days so it's too early to tell how the yields are going to compare between treatments but our hypothesis is that we're going to be able to achieve equal yields between the no-till and strip-till and the conventional-till. We have however been collecting data on nitrate leaching in all the plots using lysimeters which are installed in the plots and pretty consistently across the first four collections we've seen that the conventional-till plots are leaching at a rate four times greater than the no-till and the strip-till. Which is important because we're seeing widespread nitrate contamination of groundwater issues and Iowa has introduced a reduction strategy to try to reduce the amount of nitrates going into the groundwater so it turns out that no-till and strip-till using these surface mulches might be a good way to achieve that. I'm here in a conventional-till plot as you can see there is no cover crop on the soil surface the cover crop was incorporated with a rototiller prior to planting and has mostly broken down at this point and we have had to come through with a rototiller twice to till in between the rows to control weeds. Okay here we are in a strip-till plot and as you can see we have about a 12 inch wide tilled band where the crop is planted and this provides some of the benefits of conventional tillage in the row where the crop is planted. While we have done a little bit of weeding between the plants we've done no weeding in between the rows where as you can see we still have a nice mulch suppressing weeds. So we're here in a no-till plot and as you can see there is a mulch covering the majority of the soil surface in these plots and the peppers are looking healthy and you can see that we have a nice still pretty thick mulch here that's suppressing weeds in between the rows. Okay this is the roller crimper this is an 8 foot INJ model it was designed by the Rodale Institute who did some of the earliest research on organic no-till systems and so it's a barrel that has blades welded on it in a chevron pattern and the blades crimp the stems of rye along the length of it and allow the cover crop to dry down and kill more reliably. You can also fill the barrel with water which adds additional weight resulting in a more effective kill as well. This is a Hinnaker 6000 strip tiller which we used in this project to create the strips. It has several components up front it has row cleaners which move the rye mulch out of the way next there is a colter which cuts through any remaining rye stems which would get in the way of the rest of the strip tiller. Following that is a subsole shank with a rolling disc on either side these discs are designed to float however we found that in order to successfully till in the rye we had to put a U-bolt and fix it to the frame of the strip tiller. The shank also allows us to deliver fertilizer in the row with this side dressing unit that's mounted above then lastly there's a rolling basket which breaks up any remaining clods that would be in the planting area. We used the strip tiller at two points during the growing season once in the fall about six weeks after seeding the cover crop in order to kill the rye in the rows and then again just before planting which allowed us to kill weeds that had grown during the spring fluff up the soil to make a seedbed and then deliver the fertilizer to the crop that we planted days after.