Marissa Schuh , IPM Extension Educator Models suggest that significant cold has passed , things are starting to green up and soil is warming . While this warm winter is causing growers stress about what diseases and insects will do this spring, this early spring can provide rare windows for weed control. As with everything, what happens will vary at each farm and with each weed, but it might not all be bad news. Early season weed flush. Photo: Tom Peters For example, much of Minnesota had minimal snow cover for most of the season. For annual weeds that shed seeds, if those seeds were left on the soil surface, those seeds were easy picking for birds and rodents for most of the winter. For those seeds in our soil’s weed seedbank, each species will be looking for different environmental cues to emerge. We are likely to see many weeds emerge earlier than usual. For example, common lambsquarters germinate when temperatures are as low as 43F, but most will germinate when daytime tempera...
