Powering up pre-emergence weed control in winter wheat

As part of ADAMA’s remit to provide beneficial solutions to the problems faced by the UK cereals growers, we recently commissioned a series of trials to assess the efficacy of two popular herbicide boxsets to determine:

1. How effective are pre-emergence boxsets at controlling difficult grassweeds such as black-grass and ryegrass

2. Can the efficacy of boxsets be improved with the addition of ANTHEM (400g/l pendimethalin) and/or HURRICANE(500g/l diflufenican) as tank mix partners.

The two boxsets trialled were:

• Proclus (alconifen) + Liberator (flufenacet & diflufenican)

• Luxinum Plus (cinmethylin) + pendimethalin

The power of pendimethalin

The first set of trials – to assess the impact of adding pendimethalin to the alconifen, flufenacet and diflufenican boxset – clearly demonstrated that the inclusion of ANTHEM improves black-grass control (by an average of 16% reduction in heading numbers across the five independent trial sites).

The inclusion of pendimethalin also reduced the variability of black-grass control, with all five trials showing a significant uplift in protection.

The addition of pendimethalin as a tank mix partner resulted in a mean improvement of +16% in black-grass heading reduction, with the scope of improvement across five trails ranging from +3% to +26%

Powering up with diflufenican

The second series of trials – to evaluate the merit of adding diflufenican to a tank mix of cinmethylin + pendimethalin – also showed a positive impact in terms of a reduced variability in protection against blackgrass.

The addition of diflufenican also delivered an improvement in terms of the control of flufenacet resistant ryegrass…

…with a clear reduction in the number of ryegrass heads when diflufenican was added to the tank mix.

The addition of diflufenican as a tank mix partner provided an additional reduction in ryegrass heads

Power-up your pre-emergence programme

To find out more about how the addition of pendimethalin or diflufenican could add extra power to your pre-emergence herbicide programme, please contact the ADAMA technical helpline on 01635 876 622 and ask to be put in touch with your local Regional Agronomy Manager.

Proclus and Liberator are trade names of Bayer Cropscience UK Ltd, and Luxinum Plus is a trade name of BASF.

ANTHEM (400 g/l pendimethalin) is ADAMA’s SC formulation of pendimethalin. 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 residual herbicide activity against tough grass and broad-leaved weeds in cereals.

HURRICANE (500 g/l diflufenican) delivers proven broadleaf weed control and can improve the efficacy of some grass weed herbicides. It also boasts excellent residual activity which provides enhanced weed control even in dry conditions where germination is protracted.