This month we talk about black grass - one of the biggest challenges to profitable arable farming in the main cereal growing areas of the UK. With its high seed production, variable dormancy and herbicide resistance, black grass has become a major headache to many farmers.

We have been forced to adapt our way of working to manage the threat of black grass competition and in this episode of Agronomy Matter we are joined by three experts who help us to understand the best methods of black grass control.

Firstly, we have Richard Hull, a research technician at Rothamsted. Richard talks to us about his current research including cultural controls. You can read more from Rothamsted Research here https://www.rothamsted.ac.uk/news/new-%E2%80%98early-warning-system%E2%80%99-finds-blackgrass-evolving-resistance-glyphosate.

Our second guest is Stuart Kevis, Business Development Manager at BASF. It is widely accepted that we need to combine non-chemical control methods with herbicides to improve overall control, so Stuart speaks about the chemical options including resistance issues.

Finally, we are joined by Paul Roche, Product Placement Lead at Syngenta, who brings it all together for us and adds a little bit about how we might incorporate the control of other problem weeds.

Weed management including both IPM and herbicide programmes are covered in depth in the BASIS Certificate in Crop Protection so if you are interested in developing your knowledge in this area, please visit our website for more details.