This picture is of volunteer corn growing in a soybean field last summer in Minnesota. Notice the corn plants that are much taller than the soybeans in the picture. Farmers typically grow both corn and soybeans throughout a crop year, but never intentionally in the same field. Sometimes seeds can survive a winter and start to grow the following year while the field has been switched to an alternate crop. These old plants turn into the worst weeds a farmer could imagine. These volunteer crops strip the soil of nutrients that were intended for the current crop, which will reduce yields. On top of that, farmers will get docked at their grain elevators if there is foreign material in their grain when they unload it. Farmers often battle volunteer crops by spraying them with herbicides that specifically are designed to target volunteer crops.

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