Australian Growers Urged to be Vigilant as Brome Grass Found to Be Resistant to Glyphosate

A population of Great brome grass (Bromus diandrus) from South Australia has been confirmed resistant to the world's most important herbicide, glyphosate. Brome grass is now the third weed that became resistant to the herbicide glyphosate in South Australia. It is a major weed of crop and pasture on lighter textured soils across the southern and western Australian that can reduce yields by 30 to 40%. Brome grass is also a host to a range of cereal crop diseases

"Farmers need to use a rotation that enables a sufficient range of tactics to be used so that the weed seedbank can be driven down and kept low. Tactics such as spray-topping, brown or green manuring, hay, crop competition and windrow burning are useful to take selection pressure for resistance off the herbicides," concluded Dr. Preston, chair of the Australian Glyphosate Sustainability Working Group and leader of the University of Adelaide team which confirmed the result.

Farmers are encouraged to report glyphosate resistant brome grass through the Australian Glyphosate Sustainability Working Group website - http://www.glyphosateresistance.org.au/suspect%20glyphosate.htm. For more details, check the news at http://www.grdc.com.au/director/events/mediareleases?item_id=E7965FFC9389C5CE66D3CA96FD8B188A&pageNumber=1