Managing Vegetation In Grassland Habitats To Enhance Livestock Or Wildlife Objectives

Sustainably stewarding grassland systems involves applying various practices to manipulate forage interactions with other plants, the environment, and grazing animals to meet resource manager objectives. These interactions can result in invasion or encroachment and increased abundance of weeds which hinder attainment of management objectives. Weeds influence the structure and function of pasture ecosystems whether forages are grown in improved pastures, rangeland, or grassland communities. They degrade pasture quality and reduce livestock performance by interfering with forage establishment, yield, and quality by competing for resources. Weeds reduce the feed value of forage, decrease pasture carrying capacity, and can be toxic or unpalatable to livestock. Managing weeds requires use of vegetation management tools that favor desirable forages. Herbicides can be a catalyst that expedite grassland renovation, improve the forage resource, and increase carrying capacity. Corteva Agriscience has a variety of herbicide products that provide superior control of herbaceous and woody weeds, while maintaining the desirable vegetation. These herbicides were designed and developed specifically for selective broadleaf weed control in rangeland, pastures, rights-of-way, non-cropland, and natural areas. Active ingredients historically used include aminopyralid, triclopyr, fluroxypyr, clopyralid, and picloram. Rinskor™ active and Arylex™ active are new herbicide active ingredients from Corteva Agriscience™ and are members of a unique synthetic auxin chemotype, the arylpicolinates (HRAC group O / WSSA group 4). Members of the arylpicolinate family demonstrate novel and differentiated characteristics in terms of use rate, spectrum, weed symptoms, environmental fate, and molecular interaction as compared to other auxin chemotypes. When applied as a stand-alone treatment or in various mixes these products are safe to desirable grass species and control key herbaceous and woody weeds in the genera Ambrosia, Acacia, Carduus, Centaurea, Cirsium, Mimosa, Prosopis, Ranunculus, Rumex, Sida, Solanum, Taraxacum, and more