In an interview with Syngenta’s Herbicide US Technical Product Director, Dane Bowers, in an interview on how retailers and growers should respond to the 2021 season, he mentioned his take-home message over the past few years: Controlling resistance is not a human but a technical problem. Behavioral issues.
“From a technical point of view, I think we have a very good idea. There are challenges-don’t get me wrong,” he admitted, “but we are all habitual creatures. If it works for us, we tend to Do the same thing.”
We want to think that 2021 will bring recovery in all aspects, but until then, this is an excellent time to understand the essence of weed management. Only saw some weeds escape, but not too many? Bowles suggested: “That should be a canary in a coal mine.” “Whenever you see few escape incidents in the wild, you should think about whether I have been using the program for too long, and whether I did not include enough other sites of action in my herbicide program. What other measures should I take to avoid this situation? Usually, in the first year of resistance, you don’t really think you have a problem, and then in the first year It got worse in two years. By the third year, it was a disaster. It really was a step ahead.”
On the list of Bowers’ recommendations for the next season, and endorsed by countless agronomists, are: 1) understand the special challenges of any given farm, plus driver herbicides, and 2) understand the need to start cleaning and keep it clean. This means applying strong residual herbicides before emergence, and then applying residual overlapping herbicides 14 to 21 days later. The herbicides must combine multiple effective sites to reduce the risk of seeding resistant weeds.
“The most important part is often the hardest part. In fact, we have been adhering to the plan because the price and environmental conditions will prevent us from making the right decision,” said Drake Copeland, FMC Technical Services Manager in Ohio, Michigan.
Wolfe said: “I think when considering herbicides, a good residue program with multiple modes of action should be one of your first choices.” “When you drive along the west in August and early September, The scene you see is really simple. The residue of these people has decreased, and more residues have been added in the season. Their fields look very good and there is almost no water accumulation. People who skip the residue, Minnesota, Iowa and Dakota must have seen a lot of cannabis in late summer and early fall.
Bowers emphasized the importance of using pre-germination herbicides in dicamba products, especially considering that Dr. Larry Steckel of the University of Tennessee (L) first identified Palmer against dicamba.
Steckel wrote on his UT blog that looking forward to 2021, it is now necessary to pre-apply the residuals that are valid for Palmer. In addition, freedom must be used immediately after the use of dicamba to eliminate escape.
Steckel pointed out that this is the fifth herbicide action mode Palmer has produced in Tennessee since 1994. “If we divide the 26 years by the 5 modes of action, mathematics will show that weeds will develop resistance to effective herbicides in just 5.2 years of widespread use.”
In Syngenta’s product portfolio, its Tavium Plus VaporGrip technology dicamba premix contains S-alachlor, which provides three weeks of residual activity than dicamba alone. The company claims that when post-emergence herbicides are used in pre-emergence herbicides (such as Boundary 6.5 EC, BroadAxe XC or Prefix herbicides), “it provides the best opportunity to pass the post-emergence herbicide in soybeans in one pass”.
“This is a very powerful product, no matter what characteristics you have, you can control weeds before soybeans, and it provides a certain degree of flexibility because we don’t put all the eggs in the residual packaging. You You can come back as soon as possible to use the 15th group of herbicides, and it also contains the full amount of xylazine.” Dr. Daniel Beran, Nufarm US Technical Services Director, told CropLife®.
“We can eliminate some uncertainties and establish a burnout and residue procedure with good flexibility. If the traits change or the application tools in the crop are restricted or some application timing changes, then there must be a good The remaining herbicide program will greatly reduce the difficulty of this transition.” He pointed out that now for Nufarm, it is interesting to be a third party in the field of dicamba and 2,4-D technology. Moment-it enables company representatives to help retailers relearn the basics.
Another new pre-plant burn-out product is Reviton launched by Helm Agro in the United States. It is a PPO inhibitor herbicide with a new active ingredient Tergeo for field corn, cotton, soybeans and wheat. In more than 700 North American product development trials and regulatory studies, Reviton has proved that “over 50 broadleaf and grass weeds (including ALS, triazine and glyphosate resistant species) are extremely promising for burnout control Performance level.”
With the drop in commodity prices, Copeland has seen good crops (increased crops) and bad conditions (reduced herbicide usage).
He said: “The herbicide residues in the later application are the key to maintaining the residual weed control required for the crop to be closed to the canopy,” he added, “In addition, the residual herbicides will be ignored in any application. Increasing the return of seeds to the soil seed bank will eventually allow more money to be spent on additional passes in the field to clean up the mess.”
Copeland called on Purdue University to conduct research, which found that residual overlap is the only way to reduce the management of the first-year seed bank. The treatment without the deployment of overlapping residual herbicides with multiple sites of action resulted in a sharp increase in the density of edible water hemp in the seed bank. In contrast, the long-term post-emergence residual procedure used overlapping residual residues to reduce the water temperature Up 34% (see figure below).
He said: “Data like this can help our retailers and agronomists talk to growers.” “They can say,’I know the times are difficult, but if we want to achieve a sustainable future on your farm, Then we don’t need to cut something, whether in the factory or on the top, we can reduce the residual herbicide.’” ”
As Dr. Bob Hartzler explained in the Iowa State University Integrated Pest Management Blog: “Due to the rapid expansion of herbicide-resistant weeds, Iowa’s current weed management methods are at risk In order to maintain the efficacy of herbicides, two things must happen: 1) adopt integrated weed management; 2) shift the goal of weed management from protecting crop yields to minimizing the size of weed seed banks. The first requirement is to change Behavior, the second requires a change of attitude.”
In addition to costly skipping preemergence residues, Syngenta’s Bowers also warned of “fake” generic drugs to save cash.
Bowers introduced the standard storage stability test performed by Syngenta on general products. If the active ingredients are not formulated correctly, the AI ​​may attack each other and degrade the available herbicides. When a grower uses a product where only 80% of AI works, he may not only encounter mixing problems, but he may also apply it at a lower ratio than the label and the herbicidal effect is lower than expected.
Bowers said that a specific example is that people tend to use a general formula, which is the combination of AI S-metolachlor in Dual II Magnum and AI mesotrione in Callisto, which Syngenta can provide A variety of corn premixes, such as Acuron. In a premix of mesotrione and S-metolachlor, “If S-metolachlor is not properly formulated, it will degrade the available mesotrione.”
Bowers added: “It’s a better decision to spend a few dollars up front and adjust the herbicide plan to provide better weeding results, so that bushels per acre are better. When commodity prices are lower, produce more Many bushels are indeed your key. We will not save the way of prosperity, so we must maintain a balance in frugal spending, but we must ensure that you get the value of your investment and the return in dollars.”
Jackie Pucci is a senior contributor for CropLife, PrecisionAg Professional and AgriBusiness Global magazines. View all author stories here.