The efficacy of herbicides is expected to either decrease, increase, or maintain effectiveness depending on the specific chemistry, species, and climate factor(s) involved. This web page focuses on problematic weeds across a variety of cropping systems and provides data sourced from the current scientific literature to help build an understanding of how these future shifts might affect weed management. Please note that research to date has mostly focused on glyphosate, which limits information on effective substitutions in weather conditions where glyphosate is less effective. Additionally, only a small group of weed species have been studied, so there are many common weeds with no available information on changing herbicide efficacy. However, given the currently available literature, we conclude that photosynthetic pathway, herbicide resistance, and herbicide chemistries will have the most impact on efficacy and management.
See our other web pages and fact sheets in this series for information on photosynthetic pathways, herbicide resistance effects, and climate change impacts for additional commodity areas. Growers should refer to the current Cornell Pest Management Guidelines for information on pesticides labeled for use in New York State. Contact an area extension specialist for current information on best practices in weed management and herbicide rotation.
Credits
This content was authored by Caroline Marschner, Sharon Bachman, Isabella Colucci, John Pirrung, Sophie Westbrook, and Toni DiTommaso. We would also like to express our gratitude again to Vipan Kumar and Bryan Brown for their invaluable support and expert input on this project and these fact sheets.
Disclaimers
Read the pesticide label prior to use. The label is the law. The information contained on this page is not a substitute for a pesticide label. Trade names used herein are for convenience only; no endorsement of products is intended, nor is criticism of unnamed products implied.
This work was supported by a joint research and extension program funded by the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station (Hatch funds) and Cornell Cooperative Extension (Smith Lever funds) received from the National Institutes for Food and Agriculture (NIFA,) U.S. Department of Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
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