Field Facts: Morningglory
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While morningglories may look great in the garden, they aren’t so welcome in corn and soybean fields. In fact, if left to compete all season, a single morning glory plant per foot of row can cut soybean yield in half.1
- Common names: Pitted morningglory, tall morningglory, ivyleaf morningglory
- Scientific name: Ipomoea lacunosa, Ipomoea purpurea, Ipomoea hederacea
- Cotyledons: Two, notched leaves
- Leaf shape: Heart-shaped or ivy-shaped
- Stems: Narrow and fibrous, with tendrils
- Flowers: Trumpet-shaped in many colors, including purple, pink, blue and white
- Reproduction: Seed pods
Fast facts1
- Morningglories typically germinate in early summer but can also germinate later in the season after crops have already been established.
- Morningglories can produce more than 15,000 seeds per plant.
- Large seed size combined with a hard, impenetrable seed coat makes this plant harder to control with preemergence herbicides. Morningglories also have a natural tolerance to glyphosate.
Control tips
A combination of cultural practices and the use of effective herbicides is your key to morningglory control.
- Cultural practices that can help make soybeans more competitive with morningglory include:
- Planting soybeans in narrow rows to promote earlier row shading and discourage the growth of morningglory. Narrow row spacing has been shown to reduce the impact of morningglory on soybean yields by 19% compared with 30-inch-or-wider row spacing.1
- Higher soybean seeding rates
- Crop rotations
- Tillage
- Corteva Agriscience offers multiple weed control solutions with flexible application options to control morningglories.
- Do not plant into existing stands of morningglory. Control existing morningglories with a preplant burndown herbicide application.
- Use a program approach to weed control, with multiple modes of action, including the use of the full rate of a nonglyphostate, preemergence herbicide.
- Work with your local Corteva representative to develop a herbicide program that makes sense for your customers’ acres.
1 I Will Take Action. Morningglory. https://iwilltakeaction.com/weed/morningglory