Harvest weed seed control (HWSC) is an umbrella term that refers to a range of technologies and practices that capture and destroy weed seeds at harvest. These include chaff carts, narrow windrow burning, chaff lining, chaff tramlining (chaff decks) and weed seed impact mills. While each of these technologies differ in the specific way that weed seeds are destroyed, they are all designed to capture weed seeds via the sieves during harvest operations and eliminate them before they can germinate in the following season.

HWSC is an important tool to consider for weed management because it is a late-season cultural control tactic. Annual ryegrass (Lolium rigidum) is particularly difficult to control in the southern high rainfall zone (HRZ) because of the long growing season. In this region, annual ryegrass (ARG) continues to germinate into late winter, enabling it to avoid the residual activity of pre-emergent herbicides. Other than HWSC, there are few options for controlling this cohort of weeds.

Update Papers

• Harvest weed seed control is less effective on annual ryegrass in the southern high rainfall zone