 I'm Joe Eichle, the Extension Weed Specialist for North Dakota State University based out of Fargo. I'm out here today at the Carrington Research and Extension Center to shoot some videos to do a virtual field day since we can't have some in-person field days due to the COVID-19 situation this summer. So what I'm going to talk about today in this clip is a pigweed ID and a little bit about some of the reasons why we tend to focus a lot on the pigweeds. So I have with me today a plot that I dug up. I've got three different pigweeds in this tub out of the same field in Cass County that brought out here for some ID purposes. So from my left to my right we have Water Hemp, Powell Amaranth, and Red Root Pigweed. So these are the three most common pigweeds that we have across the state that we get questions about for control in row crops. They can all be problematic in their own right, but I'm going to talk a little bit about each one in depth, some ID, and some of the reasons why they can be problematic. So on my left is Water Hemp, and we have a lot of Water Hemp issues in the southeast part of the state, but we do have Water Hemp continuing to be problematic the farther north we go into the valley, and we have found Water Hemp spreading a lot farther west into the state over the past several years. So we can find Water Hemp in about every county in the eastern half of North Dakota, again the hot pocket or the hot bed of Water Hemp being in the southeast corner of the state. Reasons why Water Hemp can be problematic is it has a lot more herbicide resistance issues compared to our other pigweeds. We can almost guarantee that Water Hemp will have glyphosate resistance and group 2 resistance, so two chemistries that we use a lot across the state and several of our crops. The other reason Water Hemp can be very problematic, it can produce a lot of seed, a really big plant can produce up to a million seed per plant, so it's a numbers game when we talk about the amount of Water Hemp that we can battle in any given year. 2019 we had those very wet conditions throughout the summer. Water Hemp does like to have or does thrive in wet conditions. I'd say it's got the word water in it for a reason. So Water Hemp liked the 2019 conditions, produced a lot of seed, and we've seen the results of all that seed production now in 2020. One of our very problematic weeds in the early part of the season here as we've started battling our weeds and our crops. Water Hemp can also have season long emergence. So we had early season battles with Water Hemp this year, but we still have about two months to go in the Water Hemp germination window. So some of these crops have got planted late or that may take their time closing the canopy. We have to worry about controlling Water Hemp in those situations as well. So all in all one of our biggest threats as far as weeds are concerned to our crops in North Dakota. Next to Water Hemp I have Powell Amaranth. So we are raising more awareness about Powell in the past several years. Powell Amaranth a lot of times can be confused with Redwood Pigweed. As we've raised awareness about Palmer Amaranth, Powell Amaranth can be confused with Palmer a little bit at times too. Some of the reasons that Powell can be a little bit confusing for ID is we do have hairs on the stem as we do with all the other pigweeds except for Water Hemp and Palmer Amaranth. But Powell has very sparse hairs on the stem. And so a lot of times if you just kind of take a quick look at Powell, you may not see any hairs, but you have to really get a close look on Powell to see the hairs. I like to say most of us have a magnifying glass in our pockets now with cell phones. We can zoom in and take a pretty close picture of the stem. And that's sometimes what we have to do to see some of the hairs on Powell that can be so sparse. Next to Powell I have Redwood Pigweed, our most common pigweed across the state. Redwood Pigweed is very hairy. It's easy to see those hairs even without the aid of a magnifying glass or a cell phone. So as far as ID it's not very, we don't get Redwood confused with Water Hemp or Palmer Amaranth very often because the hairs are easy to see. Another identifying characteristic, we talk about hairs on the stem first because Water Hemp and Palmer would not have the hairs. But we've gotten a lot of questions this year because we've seen Pigweed ID earlier in the season. And Water Hemp is the easiest pigweed to ID compared to all the other pigweeds early season because Water Hemp has unique codledons. Water Hemp codledons tend to be a little bit more pointed or egg shaped. Oftentimes can be confused with night shade codledons compared to all the other pigweeds have long linear codledons compared to Water Hemp. So if we catch them early enough the codledons can tell if it is Water Hemp or one of the other pigweeds. Now I also have outside of my tub next to me I've got Prostrate Pigweed. So we have two other pigweeds across the state that we can find in almost any county, Prostrate Pigweed and especially we have Tumble Pigweed in the western part of the state. These two pigweeds are pigweeds related to the three that I just talked about, but not as problematic as far as control and we don't get as many identification questions because they're not as easily confused with the other pigweeds. They tend to grow more horizontally along the ground. They don't grow vertically. The other thing that differentiates Prostrate and Tumble from the other pigweeds is our main pigweeds that we deal with put a seed head on top of the plant. So this Water Hemp plant here has a seed head beginning to develop on the top of the plant. Prostrate and Tumble Pigweed, the flowering structures are found on the leaf axles. So they'll be found along the stem every time we see a petio attached to the stem at the leaf axel. That's where the flowers on Prostrate and Tumble Pigweed initiate. The only time we might get some confusion of Prostrate or Tumble with the other pigweeds is in the seedling stage. And both Prostrate and Tumble, the leaf shape is a little bit unique compared to the other pigweeds that we deal with. Tend to be a little bit more ovate or kind of looks like a spatula some people might say. So a little bit unique, but certainly once they get a number of nodes going, they go horizontal and a lot easier to tell the difference between those two compared to Red Root, Pow, Water Hemp, or the areas that we have at Palmer Amaranth. So that's kind of a quick rundown of some identifying characteristics of our pigweeds. Why Water Hemp is very problematic and we want to prevent the spread of Water Hemp. And we'll continue to talk about these pigweeds as we move forward because they are established in the state. Unfortunately, they're not going anywhere and it's going to be a perennial battle controlling these pigweed plants.