Hoary Cress (Cardaria draba) Control in Winter Wheat with Postemergence Herbicides

Field experiments were conducted during 3 yr in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, to determine the efficacy of various herbicides applied alone or in mixtures POST on hoary cress grown in winter wheat. Also, the efficacy of these herbicides on hoary cress generated from seed or root fragments was investigated in pot experiments. All herbicides except for ioxynil plus bromoxynil provided 90 to 100% control of hoary cress generated from seed and root fragments grown in pots. Ioxynil plus bromoxynil gave 84% control of hoary cress generated from seed, but only 66% control of plants generated from root fragments. In the field, mecoprop plus dicamba, imazamethabenz plus mecoprop plus dicamba, and triclopyr applied at the four- to eight-leaf stage provided, respectively, 87, 76, and 83% control of hoary cress (averaged over year and assessment time). Thifensulfuron plus tribenuron provided only 29% control. Chlorsulfuron plus dicamba, clopyralid plus MCPA, 2,4-D plus metosulam, and fluroxypyr provided intermediate hoary cress control. Furthermore, the least hoary cress emergence 52 wk after treatment appeared in plots treated with triclopyr. In addition, wheat grown in plots treated with mecoprop plus dicamba yielded more than wheat treated with the other herbicide treatments, and 55% more than wheat grown in nontreated plots. The results of this study indicate that very good control of hoary cress and high wheat yield can be obtained by the application of mecoprop plus dicamba at the four- to eight-leaf weed growth stage.