Question on Sunflowers

[Duck$$$]

I am wondering how sunflowers react to fusilade. I have grass beginning to come through the prowl and figured fusilade or post to be the only alternative. Would you add surfactant or would they burn. New to sunflowers, so let me know the tricks. I applied 17-17-17 pre-plant, should I add more N since all the rain or do they need it?

[JimAire]

Fusilade will not harm the sunflowers. You can use it or Select. Both give good control of grasses like johnsongrass but Select is probably the best on rhisome johnsongrass. Add 1/4% of 80/20 surfactant. You didn't state how many pounds per acre of the 17-17-17 you applied. That formlation gives you 17 units of nitrogen, phosphrous and potash per 100 pounds of product applied per acre. I apply about 100 units of nitrogen per acre pre-plant. Urea will be your cheapest to use and it will give you 46 units of nitrogen per 100 pounds of material. This late in the year they will do fine with less nitrogen and you can save some money too. I don't know what size your sunflowers are, but it they are ankle high, I wouldn't put more than about 150 pounds of urea per acre on them.
My sunflowers are now chest high and beginning to bloom. I used 100 units of nitrogen in the form of urea at planting along with cotoran and prowl for grass and broadleaf control, then fusilade on part of the field and select on part of it for johnsongrass. It will take 10 days to two weeks for the johnsongrass to disappear. And that's my 20 cents worth..

[Wingman]

Fusilade, Select, Poast Plus, none of these will harm broadleaves as they are a grass herbicide.

Wingman

[fivemile]

You mentioned "N". If you meant liquid nitrogen, don't put that on the flowers. It will burn them up. Stay with the urea as JimAire suggested; but wait till your field is dry before putting it out. If you don't have Johnson grass, Post seems to do better for me than Select.

[Hammer]

MEMO TO OTHER MSDUCKERS:

After reading this line, you should realize that growing sunflowers for doves is not the same as planting deer food plots or planting millet for doves or ducks...Raising sunflowers is FARMING because if the sunflowers arent clean, the doves will not use them...

So no bitching when a farmer tells you he needs $150-$200 per acre to raise sunflowers on your lease or when a sunflower field dove hunt costs $100 a gun...You get what you pay for.

HAMMER

[fivemile]

Ditto your comments Hammer. Raising clean sunflowers is tough unless you pour money into chemicals. One thing that works good for me when the sunflower are not clean is to run a light disk through them. This breaks up the heads and turns up enough dirt to give the appearance of clean.

[judge jb]

i plant my sinflowers in strips rotated with fresh strips of dirt that i plant my winter food plots of wheat on in august or sept.... a forty foot wide strip of sunflowers and a forty foot stip of fresh dirt and so on and so on.... let your wheat mature and begin bush-hogging in june or july to provide a food source year around for the wildlife..... them young turkey poults and quail will love you for it...... keep some clover around the edges and you will be amazed at the wildlife magnet you have created.....

judge jb

[Wingman]

Duck$$$,
I just sprayed my flowers today with Select at about 1-18 and 1% crop oil. Recommended rate for Select is 1-16, but I stretched it a little.

Now, if I could figure out something to get rid of the cockleburs, morningglories and coffeeweed besides this dang hoe. All of this rain has kicked off all of the weeds. I've been out "choppin'" cockleburs this evening...shew!

Wingman

[dedux]

Just be patient, a little bird told me that Roundup Ready sunflowers should be available by 2005!!!

[judge jb]

i prefer a hoe that is half wore out instead of a new heavy one... i like to keep it square and sharp out to the ends.. for gettin up close to the stalks.....wish i could find one of those new fiberglass handles to fit.....

judge jb

[Wingman]

A dull hoe will work the fool out of ya. Keep it sharp. I can spot a cocklebur hidden between two sunflower stalks from 10 rows over, now that I've had a little experience

Wingman

[mudcat]

I've used a full rate of Dual pre plant before with success on the grass, but the broadleaves ate my butt up.

I've heard 1/2 rates of Dual and Cotoran will work well in the sunflower fields. Has anyone tried this?

I also had a friend on the East coast who planted RR Canola and said it was the best dove field he ever had. RR Sunflowers would be great too.

[Wingman]

I applied Prowl at 1-4 and not sure the rate of Cotoran (had it sprayed for me by someone else). It didn't hold anything back. I got a good incorporating rain right after it was sprayed, but it didn't hold it.

I put out Zorial last year at about 1/3 lb/acre, but we had a relatively dry spring. I didn't notice any cocklebur. Grass came on after about a month, and I plowed it out. The only morningglory and sesbania trouble I had was after the sunflowers dried down and we got those rains in late August. Then the morningglory took off.

This year I burned down with Gramoxone, while at the same time putting out 30gallons/acre of N-sol, sprayed Prowl and Cotoran at planting, plowed thru at about 2 weeks old, sprayed Select last Saturday and plowed thru again last Tuesday. I think SNAFUS with my first plowing made me have to plow and spray the second time, but I can't help that.

No doubt about it, you won't waste your money by putting fertilizer out +/- 2 weeks of planting. They get a good early jump, and will outgrow another field that has no fertilizer until a month or so after planting. I planted mine on May 23 and I can already see heads down in the whorl.

Wingman

[mudcat]

Has anyone dinged up their sunflowers by using full rates of Zorial and/or Cotoran? I've never used them on sunflowers at all, but have seen what they will do to cotton and peanuts if you have a cool, wet spring or apply it a little too heavy.

[Wingman]

I want to know if you can use Command on sunflowers. It is labeled for cotton, and we put it on beans and rice, too. It has fair control on cocklebur, and excellent control on all of the grass species. Anybody tried it?

Wingman