At least 250 farmers, crop consultants, and retailers turned out Wednesday in Collinsville, Illinois for a plot tour of mostly lots of really tall and nasty weeds that don’t die easily.

The Bayer CropScience “Respect the Rotation” field day offered a glimpse of what could happen in the Midwest if resistant weeds like pigweed palmer ameranth gain a foothold. District manager Eric Peters says Respect the Rotation is Bayer’s initiative to raise awareness about weed resistance issues. “We look at ourselves as providing solutions to growers and helping our growers feed the world,” he said. “If the weeds are overtaking the fields and you get reduced yields, or in some cases no yields, that’s not a good situation.”

A couple of the stops on the tour featured experts from Arkansas, where a slow response to dealing with resistance has meant that many farmers can no longer use glyphosate at all.

Listen to my interview with Eric where he talks about the field day: Eric Peters interview

The new Vice President of Marketing for Bayer CropScience US was on hand to welcome guests at the event. Dave Hollinrake just joined the company three months ago and has enjoyed getting out to these field days and talk with farmers about ways they can protect their crops and preserve the crop protection tools they have at their disposal for the future. “The message is about preservation and long term use of that technology,” he said. “We want to encourage multiple modes of action, a transition of crops year to year, and using different traits.”

Bayer’s Liberty Link technology with Liberty herbicide has been very successful in dealing with glyphosate resistant weeds, and Hollinrake says they are happy about that, but they believe the way to keep that effectiveness is through the rotation concept.

Listen to my interview with Dave where he talks about the field day: Dave Hollinrake interview

See pictures from the field day in Collinsville in the Bayer CropScience Respect the Rotation photo album.