Most of you may already know this but you can spray any type of sunflower with Clethodim to kill grasses. I asked this question several times this year and last year and no one seemed to know. We planted the expensive sunflowers last year (can't recall the brand name) and planted cheap ones this year. We had an excellent stand last year and the cleth. did a great job on the weeds. This year we sprayed a week ago and the weeds are dead and the sunflowers are up to 12-16" tall and look great.

I've alway heard that sunflowers are expensive to grow, but with cheap seed and clethodim (cheap as well) I'm not seeing it.

Good info! I've never been able to grow any cause the deer eat them as soon as they come up.

Broadleaves are a whole different story all together...and that can be impacted by planting clearfield flowers.

Pre-emergence is the most useful tool you have.

Sulfentrazone + pendimethalin is my pre of choice.

turf, could you explain the first part of what you said? Are you saying that the cleth. doesn't kill broadleaves (which I think that's correct) so to prevent a broadleaf problem you spray a pre-emerg.? What is the advantage of the clearfield?

Thankfully we don't have a broadleaf problem. Just johnson grass primarily

Thanks

By the way, it was he clearfield we planted last year that are pretty expensive.

That's correct, clethodim doesn't give you any broadleaf control. Clearfield flowers are resistant to certain IMI herbicides(i.e.- Lightning, Beyond, Cadre, etc etc). This gives you the option of SOME postemergent broadleaf control(and nutsedge).

Pre-emergence is still the best thing you have.

I went to the co-op last week to get some Clethodim. They had "never heard of such a thing"!!
So I've just been spraying between rows with Glyphosate.

Bama, you can order on the internet and have with in a few days and if I recall correctly a half gallon is only $50-$60 and you only need 6-8 oz. per acre. If you don't have a broadleaf problem cleth. is a very good and cheap post emerg. Also works good on clover to kill grasses.

I've found certain co-ops to be very shallow in their knowledge of anything other than normal row crops.

Truedouble you are exactly right most co-op stores are a joke. Thats pitiful they dont know what Clethodim is! I know there are a FEW good folks at some stores but their knowledge is generally poor on real crop inputs.

You can buy it here:

http://www.ruralking.com/clethodim-1-gal.html

That's a reasonable price, A co-op quoted me $85 for a gallon; I just bought it online and had it in 3 days.

I used it last year on chufas for grass control, and it worked as well as any of the more expensive herbicides I've used in the past. I'm planning to spray all my green fields in Feb with it; try to kill everything but the clover.