20 THE UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH’S Plant Agriculture department continues to build on its world-renowned reputation for research and innovation. Weeds are an increasingly common problem across all crops. From increasing rates of herbicide resistance to finding new control methods and watching for new and emerging problem weeds, researchers in the department have their pick of weed challenges to investigate. Ontario Grain Farmer sat down with three weed science students to learn about their research projects and how their research results could advance future weed control solutions. UNDERSTANDING THE ROOT OF GROUP 4 RESISTANCE IN GREEN PIGWEED Ontario is home to the first case of Group 4-resistant green pigweed in the world, and that means it is attracting attention from the global weed science community. Confirmed in a field of processing peas in southwestern Ontario, green pigweed has proven resistance to some Group 4 herbicides. Isabelle Aicklen, a University of Guelph Plant Agriculture graduate student, is committed to determining how the resistance developed and proactively identifying alternative weed control strategies for herbicide-resistant green pigweed in field crops. "Since this is the first case of Group 4 herbicide resistance, this research project is quite novel," says Aicklen. Introduced in WWII, the Group 4 chemistry is one of the oldest synthetic herbicides and has been slower for resistance to progress, especially compared to Groups 2 and 5, which have developed herbicide resistance much faster. During the first two years, Aicklen's research was conducted in a greenhouse to confirm the level of herbicide resistance in this population and rule out obvious source Weed science research WOMEN TAKING THE LEAD Jeanine Moyer LEFT TO RIGHT, ISABELLE AICKLEN, FRANCINE BALANTYNE, AND MALAVIKA NAIR. causes of resistance. Now in her third year of this four-year research project, Aicklen is studying green pigweed at a molecular level in an attempt to determine exactly what mechanism inside the plant has caused this weed species to develop resistance. "We're using genomics as a tool to look at the gene expression of the plant to determine why resistance is happening, and using this information, we also hope to develop alternative weed control solutions," she says. Field trials are also being conducted in corn and soybeans to evaluate alternative chemical options for controlling this population of green pigweed. Aicklen says that, though the first case of Group 4 resistant pigweed was found in peas, the weed could have an economic impact on field crops such as corn and soybeans. The research goal is to identify specific genes that cause resistance. This discovery Research
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