The global challenge of field crop production with limited herbicides: An Australian perspective

Legislated pesticide-use restrictions or bans in a growing number of countries worldwide are forcing growers and land managers to reactively plan, develop or implement alternative pest management practices and even entire farming systems. While the rapidly rising incidence of multiple resistance in weed populations had already begun this transition in many agroregions, the future pace of change will undoubtedly accelerate. We outline possible weed management alternatives, based on workshop discussions among Australian weed scientists or practitioners and agronomists, of grain cropping scenarios in a herbicide-limited world. Further, we conducted bioeconomic model scenarios of grain crop production in southern Australia without the use of non-selective burndown or pre-harvest herbicides. Effectively and profitably managing troublesome weeds in major agronomic field crops in a restricted herbicide environment will be challenging, but can be considered as an opportunity for significantly greater adoption of ecologically based weed management tactics, strategies and systems.