Picking My Battles

With the wheat coming of so early this year and the drought breaking late July, conditions have resulting in some very challenging weed situations in the wheat stubble fields. 

 

Two weeks after harvest, with a bit of rain to get it going, Perennial Sow Thistle had started to bloom but the volunteer wheat was not all up yet.  Regardless of the early date, since the best time to go after the Sow Thistle is bud stage, I hit it with a few different mixes the first week of August.  One plot received Glyphosate and Banvel, another plot got Glyphosate, Estraprop and AMS.  Between the two, so far I can't see any differences in control.  I would estimate 85% control of the Sow Thistle, but we will see how it looks in the spring. 

 

Now my problem is this:

 

The field has greened up again with volunteer wheat.  Yes, now I will have to focus on tillage to control it before next years corn and possibly make a preplant pass of straight glyphosate in the spring but I had to choose my battles to win the war.  Since the timing was right for the sow thistle, I got reasonable control at the time and had I waited to let the wheat come up the sow thistle would have gone to seed and I'd be fighting more of it next year.