Skeleton weed is under an eradication program in Western Australia. There was concern that should the weed establish over large areas of the sandier soils in the cereal growing areas of Western Australia; the treatments to eradicate/control the weed would affect the cropping rotations. This is because the persistence of the herbicides clopyralid and picloram used for skeleton weed control would suppress lupins and other legumes which are a major part of cropping rotations in Western Australia. A cropping rotation experiment was established during 2002 in South Australia in an area heavily infested with skeleton weed. For six years crops were grown in a continuous rotation which included lupins in 2004 and 2006. Regular use of the herbicides clopyralid and picloram in the cereal phase and clopyralid as a pre-sowing application in the legume phase significantly reduced skeleton weed density without any deleterious impact on narrow leaf lupins ( Lupinus angustifolius).
