A clean crop? It starts here: strengthen weed control with a wider mix of herbicide actives

The best practice when it comes to tackling difficult grassweeds such as black-grass, ryegrass and brome is to delay drilling until late October as it allows the first flushes of weeds to be removed before crops are drilled into a stale seedbed.

However, with a couple of recent wet autumns still at the forefront of growers’ minds, it’s understandable that a lot of crops have already been sown. At the same time, pressure on cashflow following two years of drought might tempt growers to cut back on crop protection inputs. But that would only exacerbate the threat from grassweeds as any plants that go unchecked in the autumn will have a significant impact on crop yield at harvest.That’s because cleaner crops start with earlier, stronger weed control decisions in the autumn.

Every successful season is built on the decisions made at establishment. That’s why ADAMA’s advice is to use a wider range of herbicide active ingredients from different modes of action to give crops a cleaner start: actives such as diflufenican (DFF), pendimethalin (PDM) and chlorotoluron (CTL) have all been proven to improve the efficacy of aclonifen and cinmethylin based programmes, with independent trials proving their ability to provide improved levels of grassweed control.

Add PDM for extra yield

Pendimethalin can be included in pre- or post-emergence treatments by using ANTHEM^® alongside other actives: in six independent trials which included work carried out by ADAS and NIAB, the inclusion of ANTHEM^® (400 g/L pendimethalin) alongside Proclus^® (aclonifen) and Liberator^® (flufenacet and diflufenican) improved black-grass control by between 10 and 16%.

A unique three-way formulation

Pendimethalin can also be included in autumn weed control programmes by applying ADAMA’s unique three-way herbicide, TOWER^® (250 g/l chlorotoluron, 40 g/l diflufenican & 300 g/l pendimethalin). TOWER^® provides useful efficacy against grassweeds, with trials showing that it also provides excellent control of a range of broadleaved weeds at the pre-emergence and post-emergence timings. In fact, as well as delivering the same level of annual meadowgrass control as other flufenacet-based products, TOWER^® also provided superior control of groundsel, speedwell, and field pansy.

TOWER^® also offers good efficacy against brome: it not only offers good stand-alone pre-emergence activity versus sterile, meadow and rye brome, but also partners well with HURRICANE^® SC (500 g/L diflufenican) or Defy (prosulfocarb) to provide outstanding levels of control of all three species.

Likewise, TOWER^® also provides good stand-alone activity against sterile brome, meadow brome and rye brome at the post-emergence timing. It also works well as a post-emergence option alongside Defy (prosulfocarb) with which it delivers outstanding broad-spectrum brome control.

The power of CTU

The chlorotoluron element within TOWER^® provides excellent control of a range of weed species. As the slide below shows, the inclusion of CTU (an active ingredient which is unique to ADAMA and present in TOWER^® and CHROME^®) provides full control of a range of groundsel populations. It can also be used to improve the persistence of black-grass and ryegrass stacks, and to provide a positive effect against brome.

ANTHEM^®… the user-friendly PDM option

ANTHEM^® is ADAMA’s SC formulation of pendimethalin (400 g/l). It delivers higher efficacy on grass weeds compared to CS preparations of the same active ingredient, is user-friendly thanks to its easy to pour and rinse formula and provides long-lasting and reliable activity against tough grass and broad-leaved weeds in cereals.

In a series of eight independent trials, the addition of ANTHEM^® to Proclus and Liberator improved black-grass control by an average of 14%.

• Pendimethalin (400 g/l) is a key active ingredient for effective weed control in a broad range of crops including winter wheat, winter barley, spring barley and maize
• User-friendly SC (suspension concentrate) formulation
• Easy to pour, easy to rinse and easy to clean

• Broad spectrum weed control including annual meadowgrass, black-grass and broad-leaved weeds.

  

TOWER^®… an exclusive three-way co-formulation

TOWER^® is an exclusive co-formulation of three active ingredients with complementary modes of action. In addition to providing excellent control of annual meadow grass and broadleaved weeds, TOWER^®  also provides good activity against grass weeds in winter and spring wheat, winter and spring barley, winter rye and winter triticale. In addition to its positioning as an effective pre-emergence option, TOWER^®  can also be used as a post-emergence treatment in winter cereals and spring wheat and spring barley.

• Three active ingredients: 250 g/l chlorotoluron + 40 g/l diflufenican + 300 g/l pendimethalin
• Excellent standalone annual-meadowgrass and broadleaved weed control
• Contains chlorotoluron for use in resistance management of weeds
• Proven effective against groundsel, poppy, cleavers, mayweed and chickweed, including SU resistant populations

• When used alongside additional modes of action, TOWER^®  is an important part of ryegrass and black-grass control programmes.

  

  Proclus^® and Liberator^® are registered Trade Marks of Bayer.

  Crystal^® is a registered trademark of BASF.

  Defy^® is a registered trademark of Syngenta.