{"id":157412,"date":"2018-11-08T14:56:17","date_gmt":"2018-11-08T20:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=157412"},"modified":"2018-11-08T14:57:36","modified_gmt":"2018-11-08T20:57:36","slug":"super-weed-spreading-in-north-dakota","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=157412","title":{"rendered":"“Super Weed,” spreading in North Dakota"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) \u2014 A super weed that can devastate corn and soybean crops has now been found in five North Dakota counties, but a university expert says there is still hope for preventing a widespread infestation of Palmer amaranth in the state.<\/p>\n

The aggressive pigweed species can grow as tall as 7 feet and produce hundreds of thousands of seeds. It\u2019s strong enough to stop combines and resist many herbicides.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s native to the desert regions of the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico, but it has slowly spread to southeastern and Midwestern states and in recent years has moved into South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa.<\/p>\n

It was first confirmed in soybeans in southeastern North Dakota\u2019s McIntosh County<\/strong> in August, and it now has been confirmed either by extension specialists or through laboratory analysis in Benson, Dickey, Foster and Richland counties, in soybeans, livestock feed and in the wild.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The infestations have been small, with officials in most cases pulling the plants by hand, according to Tom Peters, sugar beet agronomist with the North Dakota State University Extension Service.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can manage these small fields of Palmer amaranth,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we allow it to become established, I think then it\u2019s going to change the way we grow crops in North Dakota.\u201d<\/p>\n

A heavy Palmer amaranth infestation can cut soybean yields by as much as 79 percent and corn yields by up to 91 percent, according to research by Purdue University. The threat from the weed is so great that NDSU Weed Science officials named it the \u201cweed of the year\u201d in both 2014 and 2015, even though it hadn\u2019t yet been found in the state.<\/p>\n

Officials determined the weeds found in the past few months had a variety of likely sources \u2014 migratory birds, farm equipment, a railroad car and livestock feed brought in from out of state. All of the plants so far have been found in eastern North Dakota, which borders states where Palmer amaranth also is present.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) \u2014 A super weed that can devastate corn and soybean crops has now been found in five North Dakota counties, but a university expert says there is still hope for preventing a widespread infestation of Palmer amaranth in the state. The aggressive pigweed species can grow as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":152205,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=157412"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157414,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157412\/revisions\/157414"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/152205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=157412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=157412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=157412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}