Weed Control Requires a Pre-Emerge Mindset
Feb 24, 2026
The best weed control is to never let them see the light of day.
“Getting off to a clean start with a good pre-emerge herbicide is vital to your success,” said Brad Hipsag, Federates sales agronomist. “Federated offers many pre-emerge herbicide options, though, and we need to consider a lot of things before deciding on the right one.”
Before choosing your pre-emerge, you need to consider things like soil type, organic matter, tillage practices, weed spectrum, and soybean traits like Enlist™ or Conv. Once you know what you’re working with, we can work with you to find the right pre-emerge.
“We have waterhemp that has built an herbicide resistance to a lot of our soybean post-emerge herbicide weapons, like glyphosate, PPOs, 2,4-D, and many others,” Hipsag said. “We’ve even been finding resistance to glufosinate (Liberty). With so much resistance to our post-emerge options, our pre-emerge pass is extremely critical.”
Hipsag said we should switch our mindset to relying more and more on the pre-emerge pass to keep our soybean fields clean. “Consider your post-emerge pass as just a cleanup to get the escapes,” he said. “We have been doing the opposite and letting our beans green up, then relying on our post-emerge pass to kill the weeds. It’s just not as effective as it once was.”
By spraying a pre-emerge immediately behind the planter, the residual herbicide will carry you for four to six weeks without letting weeds come out of the ground. After that four-to-six-week period, post-emerge can be used to clean up the escapes.
“The best way to handle post-emerge weed resistance is to never let the weeds get out of the ground,” concluded Hipsag.
To learn more about your pre-emerge options, contact your friendly local Federated agronomist.
“Getting off to a clean start with a good pre-emerge herbicide is vital to your success,” said Brad Hipsag, Federates sales agronomist. “Federated offers many pre-emerge herbicide options, though, and we need to consider a lot of things before deciding on the right one.”
Before choosing your pre-emerge, you need to consider things like soil type, organic matter, tillage practices, weed spectrum, and soybean traits like Enlist™ or Conv. Once you know what you’re working with, we can work with you to find the right pre-emerge.
“We have waterhemp that has built an herbicide resistance to a lot of our soybean post-emerge herbicide weapons, like glyphosate, PPOs, 2,4-D, and many others,” Hipsag said. “We’ve even been finding resistance to glufosinate (Liberty). With so much resistance to our post-emerge options, our pre-emerge pass is extremely critical.”
Hipsag said we should switch our mindset to relying more and more on the pre-emerge pass to keep our soybean fields clean. “Consider your post-emerge pass as just a cleanup to get the escapes,” he said. “We have been doing the opposite and letting our beans green up, then relying on our post-emerge pass to kill the weeds. It’s just not as effective as it once was.”
By spraying a pre-emerge immediately behind the planter, the residual herbicide will carry you for four to six weeks without letting weeds come out of the ground. After that four-to-six-week period, post-emerge can be used to clean up the escapes.
“The best way to handle post-emerge weed resistance is to never let the weeds get out of the ground,” concluded Hipsag.
To learn more about your pre-emerge options, contact your friendly local Federated agronomist.