Treatments too new for Pub 75
With a suggested retail of $34 per acre, Viper isn't the cheapest spray on the market, but Cyanamid is betting that soy growers who are thinking about Roundup Ready will find the new herbicide offers a better bottom line. Viper strikes at Roundup
The reason, says Cyanamid, is that growers can plant whatever variety they believe will give best yields, whether it's herbicide resistant or not. They can choose their own seed source - including bin run - and don't have to pay a technology use agreement fee.
Plus, Viper offers residual, one-pass control so there's no need to scout and fret about the optimum timing for a Roundup spray and whether you'll need to go back for a second application.
How do the economics add up on your farm? Most experts urge farmers to get out the pencil.
Viper can be sprayed at the one to sixth leaf stage of the weeds and any time after the crop reaches the first trifoliate. Residual activity is good, although probably not quite up to Pursuit. Viper, however, gives better control of grasses and emerged lamb's-quarters. Ragweed control is rated excellent.
At $10.40 per acre, Distinct is a new broadleaf herbicide in corn that competes with the economics of some of the oldest weed killers. Key advantages include its broad spectrum, fast kill, and the option to spray up to the five and six-leaf stage and still obtain residual control. The Distinct difference for corn
Researchers are crediting Distinct with excellent wide-spectrum broadleaf control, including annuals, perennials, and triazine-resistants. It will also suppress annual grasses, making the farm's grass control herbicide look sharper. Registered tankmixes include Frontier, Ultim and Accent.
Crop safety is good, but can be a worry on sandy soils. Because Distinct includes dicamba, the active ingredient in Banvel, there's a chance of vapour drift in hot weather. The dicamba rate is one-quarter the normal stand-alone Banvel rate, however, and drift concerns are proportionately reduced.
BASF, which makes Distinct, expects that half of Distinct will be used by corn growers who spray the company's dicamba products, especially Banvel. The other half will be growers lured from other programs.
Distinct comes in a dry flowable formulation with an application rate of 115 grams per acre. BASF is packaging it in two 2.3-litre jugs per case. Each jug treats 20 acres.
Two new tankmix strategies could create renewed interest in one of Ontario's oldest, but most cost-effective, corn herbicides. Rhone-Poulenc has applied for registration of a half-rate of Pardner with Ultim together with a half pound of atrazine. New partners for Pardner
The Pardner will knock out most emerged broadleafs, with the atrazine sharpening control on pigweed and velvetleaf. Ultim will take out emerged annual grasses and is also active on quackgrass.
Dropping the Pardner rate to 0.2 litres per acre would make it safe to apply the tankmix to three-leaf corn, which would risk serious scorch injury if treated with the 0.4-litre rate that is labeled for four-leaf corn.
DuPont, meanwhile, has applied for a tank-mix of the full rate of Pardner plus Accent, either on their own or with atrazine. The treatment is more expensive, both because of the full rate of Pardner and the use of Accent, but Accent improves crop safety.
The companies say both treatments will be of interest to corn growers looking for broad-spectrum post-emergent control with no risk of vapour drift.
Zeneca, which makes the glyphosate herbicide Touchdown, hopes to get federal approval by spring to permit a range of new tankmixes. New partners would include Frontier, Primextra, linuron, Prowl and Dual II Magnum. More uses for Touchdown
The company is also hoping growers get federal clearance for Touchdown used pre-harvest in soybeans and white beans.
Corn is catching up with soybeans this spring with the launch of Roundup Ready in-crop spraying. Dekalb has enough seed for 50,000 acres, and Monsanto has Ottawa's official approval in hand. Corn gets Ready for Roundup
With that label, growers can apply one litre per acre any time from the first to the eighth leaf of the crop, with a follow-up spray at one litre per acre if required. Labelled weeds include lamb's-quarters, ragweed and pigweed, together with a range of annual grasses and quackgrass.
Roundup Ready corn, however, is a different issue from Roundup Ready soybeans. For instance, there are competitors in corn: The Liberty Link system got off to a head start last year.
Also, corn growers who opt for Roundup Ready may be more likely to choose sequential or tankmix partners. Although none are on this year's label, Monsanto will put out more research plots this summer and try to get label expansions for the year 2000.
Expected partners would include Marksman, Banvel and atrazine. Such sprays would add residual control to the non-residual Roundup program - maybe more important in wide-row corn than in soybean crops that are much faster to close their canopy and shade out new weeds.
While so much media attention has focused on Roundup Ready soybeans, the Liberty Link corn system has been steadily winning converts to its herbicide resistance strategy. This year, it's expected Ontario corn growers will spray Liberty on up to 200,000 acres, based on 20 resistant hybrids with maturities covering most of Ontario's corn acreage. More freedom with Liberty
Label expansions, with new tankmixes and new weeds, including perennial sowthistle, could make Liberty even more popular. AgrEvo has asked Ottawa to approve Liberty in a new tankmix with Prowl, which would add more residual grass control than other Liberty partners. The company has also asked for a label change allowing growers who tankmix with Marksman to scale their Marksman rate back to one litre per acre from the current 1.5 litres. AgrEvo says its research shows the one-litre rate is equally effective.
Corn growers who tankmix with atrazine may also get official permission to cut their rate below the currently labeled pound per acre rate. Last year, the Liberty plus atrazine tankmix proved most popular.
At a cost of $22 per acre for the Liberty and another $5 for the atrazine, it's competitive with a broad range of corn treatments. Unlike the Roundup Ready system, there's no Technology Use Agreement fee.
AgrEvo has also applied to add eight new weeds to its Liberty label, including nightshade, chickweed and mustard. Most important for no-tillers may be the addition of perennial sowthistle. Liberty suppresses Canada thistle, giving rapid burndown of top growth and a four to six-week head start for the crop. Control of sowthistle, it turns out, is even better, perhaps because of sowthistle's less aggressive root system.
Other new weeds would include eastern black nightshade, chickweed, and mustard.
The next big news for Liberty could come next spring with the introduction of Liberty-Link soybeans.
If there's a knock against Roundup, it's that it takes too long to make a weed shrivel. Even getting a weed to start turning yellow usually takes a week or more. Fast forward for fast kill
Now, growers can get faster symptoms with Fast Forward, a new pre-mix from Monsanto that features glyphosate - the active ingredient in Roundup - together with glufosinate, the lightning fast active found in Liberty. Price will be $10.99 a litre.
Actually, there will be two slightly different products. A formulation called Pre-Seed is meant for pre-plant burndowns in no-till. A second called Pre-Harvest is intended for use by edible bean growers as a dessicant.
Fast Forward produces faster symptoms, and the Pre-Seed formulation is targetted mainly at growers who want to use Roundup as a pre-plant burndown but who'd be more comfortable if they could see that their weed killer is working before they start planting. After all, no one wants their crop to come up in the midst of a weedy mess.
Rates are one litre per acre for annual weed burndown, 1.2 to 1.5 litres for quackgrass, and 1.5 to 2.0 litres for dandelions.
Soybean growers who plant Roundup Ready seed can start spraying Roundup at two litres per acre to tackle milkweed and nutsedge. Until now, the rate had been capped at a single litre per application. RR soys for milkweed, nutsedge
A sequential spray of litre doses will suppress these weeds, but the single two-litre rate will give season-long control, Monsanto says. Suggested timing is when the crop is in the second to third trifoliate stage.
Also new for 1999 is a broader application window. Growers can apply to full-flower, instead of the early-flowering limit from last year. The company says the expanded timing will help with some late emerging weeds, but more often will be important in fields with uneven crop emergence.
Even when it's sprayed at full-flower, crop safety is excellent, Monsanto says.
© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
backThe new Reflex-plus-Pursuit tankmix may make sense to soybean growers for two reasons: weed control and weed resistance. Reflex with Pursuit
Reflex sharpens the broadleaf control of post-emerge Pursuit, adding a touch of residual control not available with other Pursuit partners such as Basagran. The length of the residual control with Reflex depends on soil conditions - the drier the soil, the longer it lasts - but it's enough to take some of the pressure off post-emerge timing since weeds that germinate soon after application will also be controlled.
Reflex helps Pursuit with lamb's-quarters, which is often the first to break through a post-emerge Pursuit application. Where Reflex shines, however, is its fast kill of ragweed.
The Reflex-plus-Pursuit tankmix is also the kind of treatment that weed researchers are talking up. The chemicals belong to different families: Pursuit is a Group 2; Reflex is a Group 14. Because there's so much overlap in the weed spectrums, most broadleaf weeds are hit with two different modes of action - an important plank in an anti-resistance strategy.
The Reflex plus Pursuit tankmix should go down roughly 20 days after planting, at the first to second trifoliate stage. The Reflex rate ranges from 0.32 to 0.4 litres per acre, with a cost of about $14.25 per acre. Choose the low rate for ragweed only. The Pursuit rate is 126 ml per acre.
Zeneca, which makes Reflex, recommends the addition of Agral 90 at 0.25 litres per 100 litres of spray, and 28 per cent UAN at 0.8 litres per acre.
DuPont is changing the name on the "max" portion of its Ultimax duo. Ultimax is a pre-pack containing separate containers of DuPont's grass killer Ultim and Dow Agro's broadleaf chemical Striker. The Max in Ultimax
The combination was used on about 120,000 acres of Ontario corn last year. This year, it's expected Ultimax usage will double.
Instead of opening the package to find containers of Ultim and Striker, however, growers this year will find a container of Ultim and one of Max...the Max is Striker, just with a different name.
For growers who really want to know what they're spraying, there's even more homework. Ultim is a pre-formulated blend of the active ingredients in Accent and Elim. Striker - or Max - is a pre-formulated blend with three active ingredients, including flumetsulam (the basis for the Broadstrike family) clorpyralid (the active ingredient in Lontrel) and 2,4-D.
Your brain may get confused about the new Duals for corn and soybeans. Your back muscles, however, are sure to know the difference. And so will your will stress levels during hectic spring planting. New Dual: Less is more
The new Duals carry the name Magnum. Like the original Dual, they're based on the active ingredient metolachlor. Now, Novartis scientists have identified a more active version called s-metolachlor.
Because it's more active, Novartis has been able to chop its recommended application rates by roughly 40 per cent. New rates are 0.5 to 0.7 litre per acre, compared to 0.8 to 1.1 litres with earlier formulations.
Novartis says Magnum's performance is identical to the old Dual. The only difference is the amount of product that farmers need to lug about.
Growers still need to choose between Dual Magnum and Dual II Magnum, however. The "II" in the name means the formulation comes with a higher rate of benoxacor to protect corn against herbicide injury, especially under backward spring conditions. The 'II' version costs an extra $1 per acre, so farmers spraying their corn post-emerge or spraying soybeans may stick with straight Dual Magnum.
At $33 to $35 per acre, it isn't cheap, but the new tankmix of Fieldstar with Primextra II Magnum offers very broad-spectrum weed control and, importantly, it delivers it in a single pass. Primextra plus Fieldstar
Publication 75, Ontario's weed control guide, gives the tankmix solid excellent ratings from annual broadleaf weeds, and annual grass weeds except proso millet. The tankmix also earns nods for helping prevent weed resistance, since it contains four different active ingredients from four different chemical families.
The Primextra-plus-Fieldstar tankmix can be applied surface pre-plant or pre-plant incorporated up to 30 days before seeding. It can also be sprayed pre-emerge or early post.
The tankmix requires moisture for activation. After last year's dry May and June, Novartis is suggesting growers look at laying the tankmix down early in the hopes that those early season rains will do some good instead of only holding up planting. Without rain, farmers can improve weed control by incorporating the herbicide into the germination zone.
Corn growers looking to tap into the broadleaf control spectrum offered by Fieldstar will get extra choices beyond the headline Fieldstar-plus-Primextra tankmix. More uses for Fieldstar
New for '99 are tankmixes with Eradicane for ppi users and with Prowl for pre- and early post-emerge sprayers, as well as flexible tankmix with Frontier.
Dow Agro is also hoping that before spring it will get federal approval for a Fieldstar impregnated on dry fertilizer.
At least nobody tried to call it IQ corn, short for imi-quick. But they have called it just about everything else from imi-corn to IT corn and IR corn. The Smart approach
The seed and chemical industries are trying to end the confusion by adopting the phrase Smart Corn to describe the system of using imidazolinone herbicides on resistant hybrids.
These hybrids can be sprayed with Pursuit, the soybean herbicide based on the active ingredient imazathapyr. Most corn growers, however, will opt to buy Patriot, a pre-mix that at a cost of $27 per acre includes a half pound of atrazine. Patriot can be sprayed up to the four-leaf stage of the weeds and provides season-long residual control.
Patriot got official clearance last year, but hybrids were very limited, so for most growers, 1999 will be their first chance to test the system. Zeneca-Garst, Growmark, Cargill and Pioneer are selling a dozen hybrids with maturities ranging from 2700 to 3300 heat units.
The cheapest way to buy atrazine is getting a major update. At typical rates, Primextra users buy 0.8 to 0.9 pounds of atrazine an acre for $2 to $3 more per acre than for Dual alone. New Primextra
Dual contains the active ingredient metolachlor. Primextra is a preformulated blend of metolachlor plus the atrazine. To buy that much atrazine separately would cost about $5.
Novartis is now introducing Primextra II Magnum. It's still a metolachlor-plus-atrazine pre-mix, but the metolachlor is all in the more active s-metolachlor form. As a result, application rates are chopped in half, with a 1.5-litre-per-acre standard recommendation.
Growers have wanted to make sure their metolachlor went down with benoxacor, the "safener" that prevents crop injury in cold, wet soils. Until now, they've had to buy Dual II and mix it in the tank with their own atrazine.
The new formulation Primextra II Magnum, however, also contains the benoxacor safener. Novartis says it offers identical weed control to its older Primextra product.
© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
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