 is the sugar beet report, bringing you the latest information from NDSU throughout the sugar beet growing season. Rowers got into the field later than average this spring. It's a bit of a downside, but on the upside, the unusually warm weather has led to rapid growing sugar beet. And how does this formula affect weeds? Tom Peters, NDSU and University of Minnesota Extension Sugar Beet Agronomist, joins us to talk about weed development. Tom, I would guess weeds also benefit from optimum growing conditions. Absolutely, Bruce. So when we till our soils, when we have good moisture, when we have sun, when we have heat units, weeds benefit just as much as our crop. And I would argue that early in the season, our weeds benefit even more because sugar beets are slow to get established in the spring. Have you made any observations about weed management in 2023 that might be unique from other years? I think there's some basic agronomic principles that we talk a lot about in meetings. And sometimes we see them, sometimes we don't. And one that I've observed this year is we always talk about starting clean. And what that means is we don't want to have any weed escapes that are, let's say two or three inches tall when our sugar beets are just getting planted in the soil. And we certainly saw the advantages to planting clean this year or the disadvantages of having weed escapes. Weed escapes are certainly an important challenge that we had this year that we have to consider for future years. What if I have weed escapes? Does size matter? Well, it depends on the weed you have, but let's focus our conversation to waterhemp. A lot of the work that I do with waterhemp, there are some programs that are effective on one or two inch waterhemp, but once waterhemp gets to three or four inches, there really isn't a lot you can do. One of the programs that we've used for the last two seasons now, this will be our third season, is Ultra Blazer. So we use Ultra Blazer with an emergency exemption label. The caveat with Ultra Blazer is our sugar beets have to be at least the six going on eight leaf stage. Tom, I've heard concerns about sugar beet injury. So we do get injury with Ultra Blazer, especially when it's very warm outside. There's several precautions that one can take if you elect to use Ultra Blazer. Number one, use plenty of water. I like to use at least 20 gallons per acre water carrier. Number two, on these hot days, and I'm saying greater than 85 degrees, spray in the afternoon. Try to avoid the hottest part of the day or the day where it's starting to cool down. Number three, use non-ionic surfactant instead of using glyphosate mixed with your Ultra Blazer. We have some evidence that the new glyphosate formulation is more phytotoxic when combined with Ultra Blazer. So if you're concerned about that, especially on moderate or marginal levels of water hemp used non-ionic surfactant with Ultra Blazer. Does Ultra Blazer control other weeds? We use Ultra Blazer for pigweed, and that's more or less all that it controls. If you have lambs quarters in your field, you're not going to get much help from Ultra Blazer. Thanks, Tom. Our guest has been Tom Peters, NDSU and University of Minnesota Extension sugar beet agronomist. This is the Sugar Beet Report, bringing you the latest information from NDSU throughout the sugar beet growing season.