In mid-December, soon after cotton harvest, Drew Wendland sat in his office penciling out 2025’s crop budgets. One variable in the calculations included growing cotton without in-season dicamba. Because of that, he planned to be aggressive.

Wendland farms just west of Mont-gomery, Ala., on a multigenerational, diversified operation, which includes cotton.

“My plans for weeds will be similar to what we’ve done: minimizing the use of dicamba anyway, except we’ll use Liberty in place of dicamba [in 2025] for our in-season application to catch something that gets by us,” Wendland said.

Mainly, he wanted to keep fields clean coming out of the gate and be more proactive than reactive.

“I’m going to basically go with three preemergence products on the front end. Going to put Valor at burndown, diuron at plant, and something like Dual or Warrant over the top early,” he said. “Yes, it’s more products to buy and maybe even more trips across the fields, but I think the net cost is not going to make much of a difference.”

With the loss of dicamba, Wendland said the Enlist cotton system is back on the table for discussion, but he planned to keep dicamba-resistant technology in his cotton mix next season.

Along with herbicide choices, two-thirds of the Wendlands’ cotton acres are planted to an oat-rye cover crop. In February, they strip into green cover and let the middle cover grow an additional 45 to 60 days. But sometimes they plant green and terminate planting, or burn down ahead of planting, depending on how many people can work then. They plant in 38-inch rows, starting in late April to early May.

Related:A layby application made a 1,400-pigweed difference per acre

Concern over fewer tools

Across the state line, Stanley Culpepper is a weed specialist with University of Georgia Extension. Losing weed management tools like dicamba has him worried when it comes to the sustainability of family farms.

Culpepper said cotton farmers must focus on profitably for 2025 by growing the highest-yielding cultivars and sticking to the calendar for weed control.

“The priority should be selecting cultivars that maximize yield and quality while making the most out of the weed control program offered for that technology,” he said. “I think our growers are good enough to grow the highest-yielding variety regardless of trait package. If that is in a 2,4-D choline system, then we have very good flexibility that is comparable to our past dicamba systems. Growers must take special steps to ensure 2,4-D choline goes on-target and stays there.

“If the highest yield potential remains with the dicamba cultivars, then even if we can’t get dicamba for 2025, glufosinate programs can be fruitful if one understands that more effort and timeliness will be needed.”

Related:How you can and can’t use dicamba in 2025

Georgia farmers have embraced the dicamba technology since its introduction in 2016. According to a UGA Extension survey, more than 95% of Georgia’s annual 1 million-plus acres of cotton gets planted with dicamba-resistant varieties.

Why? Because the dicamba system allowed farmers better flexibility than many others on yield potential and the timing of post applications, especially with pigweed.

Culpepper said farmers already know what they need to do, but they need to be more aggressive and timelier implementing their weed management without dicamba.

Without dicamba in-season, farmers need to “militantly” commit to being pigweed-free at planting, he said. Cover crops reduce weed emergence of species like pigweed, while deep turning can place weed seeds, of many species, at a depth where they can’t emerge.

For burndown, Valor is a critical tool for providing residual control of numerous species, and it works effectively in fields with plant residue. Direx is among the more effective herbicides, Culpepper said, far better than 2,4-D or dicamba in controlling emerged pigweed while providing a little residual control.

Dicamba or 2,4-D would be needed in most fields to control primrose, horseweed, fleabane and radish, he said; 2,4-D is much more effective on radish, while dicamba is better on horseweed. Gramoxone plus Direx offers the most effective option for controlling emerged pigweed just before planting.

“At planting for all systems, we need to place at least two active ingredient residuals behind the press wheel that are effective on pigweed,” Culpepper said. “Over the past five years, growers have been able to soften the rates of these herbicides at planting, helping avoid crop injury concerns because of effective dicamba or 2,4-D choline post programs.”

Be aggressive

In fields where glufosinate will be the in-crop pigweed management tool, farmers may need to be a little more aggressive with their at-plant herbicide rates, as well as maximize their glufosinate rate, Culpepper said.

“Postemergence applications should be super-timely with the first post application within 14 to 17 days after planting and have the second post applied within 17 days of the first post,” he said.

And farmers need to have the layby rig ready. For layby, diuron plus MSMA, or Roundup plus diuron are effective options to control many weeds, he said. Add Envoke for morningglory or nutsedge, or add Warrant, Outlook or Dual Magnum for tropical spiderwort and annual grasses.

“Our growers have done a phenomenal job wisely using the dicamba technologies, and it’s been an effective tool to help them remain sustainable. It will be a monumental challenge without it,” Culpepper said. “But again, if they can stay aggressive and timely, they can manage without it, hopefully, for no more than one year.”

Back at Wendlands’ office as the holidays approached, Wendland said he likely wouldn’t plant as many cotton acres in 2025 as he did in previous years but wasn’t sure by how much he will cut.

Like many, Wendland wasn’t enthusiastic about 2025’s financial offerings — with or without dicamba. Still, he was apprehensively optimistic.

“It’s going to be a squeeze [economically]. Input costs have been a challenge for several years now,” he said. “But I think fortunately for us, we’ve seen some of our input prices moderate somewhat. But several years ago, we were selling for good prices.

“Today, there is substantially more risk associated with growing any of the crops we grow compared to five years ago. … It’s not very exciting to talk about.”