Lay-by sprayer for cotton (Palmer amaranth)

For many of our cotton farmers this is their first year to grow cotton. We have struggled with the challenges of managing Palmer amaranth as they have throughout the cotton belt. Some of this is resistant to herbicides and some is not resistant. We also have a variety of late season weeds and even some like nutsedge that has challenged us all season. This late in the season we have a large cotton bush, and we are not obtaining good spray coverage of weeds with over the top applications. I have encouraged these new cotton farmers to look at lay-by sprayers and many of us have been texting and emailing pictures back and forth. Some have bought new equipment, some have borrowed equipment, some have retrofitted old drop sprayers, and some have sat back and watched the weeds grow.

One farmer retrofitted a sprayer like this with drops and flood jet tips

I talked with our weed scientists from UGA and UF and got a strong recommendation for applying 1 qt MSMA/1 qt Diuron/1 qt crop oil per acre through the layby rig. We have been doing that on area farms and have been very happy with the cleanup. I know some others have been talking about reflex or valor as the residual instead of diuron. We have to recognize there is a method to the madness, that diuron is a unique mode of action and we are trying to take resistance development pressure off the PPO herbicides (Valor, Reflex) whenever possible. We are depending on them to manage Palmer amaranth in several crops.

Palmer amaranth following the layby application (MSMA/Diuron/COC)