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A P R I L 2 0 1 612 POTATO GROWER Planting season is always a fun time of year. I fondly remember planting the crops with my father and grandfather. Every year invariably brings some type of challenge and you want to ensure a successful planting because is an important initial step to a successful crop. I remember back in the days of no auto steer how we would spend a lot of time lining up the first pass of the planter so we could plant in straight lines. Of course todays technology with auto steer has replaced this issue of driving straight my wife says this takes all the fun out of it. As science continues to advance and new technologies are devel- oped our ability to do many tasks has improved. For exam- ple we can now detect many pesticides as parts per billion or trillion. These tests can help determine if herbicides may be the cause of problems in the field. Glyphosate residues have been recognized as being a major problem in seed potato causing many issues with emergence. Because of this I frequently have people asking if glyphosate is causing problems with emer- gence in their fields. In some cases they are correct and a lab- oratory analysis can confirm the presence of glyphosate but in other situations glyphosate is wrongly accused. For this rea- son I will review glyphosate symptomology and cover some symptoms that may be similar to glyphosate symptoms in potato emergence. Problems with herbicides residues in seed tubers most like- ly began the prior year when the plant came in contact with some type of herbicide whether by drift tank contamination or another mode. When those seed tubers are planted the following year and begin to grow the her- bicide residues take effect and cause visual problems with the stems petioles andor leaves. Symptoms of glyphosate affect- ed tubers are erratic and slow emergence bending or twisting epinasty of young leaves mul- tiple stems from an eye andor cauliflower or candelabra for- mation of stems Figure 1. Typically glyphosate affected plants will express many of these symptoms however the one symptom most characteristic of glyphosate is multiple stems coming from a single eye. If just one of these symptoms is expressed not including multi Andys Advice Is It Glyphosate Or Something Else By Andy Robinson Extension Potato Agronomist NDSUUMN