Powering up early season weed control in wheat

One way to maximise the impact of early season herbicide applications is to include additional active ingredients in the tank mix, with trials carried out over the last two years showing that pendimethalin and diflufenican both provide useful additional activity to some of the more popular herbicide box offerings.

The trials were designed to assess the effectiveness of two herbicide boxsets and to determine if their efficacy could be improved with the addition of Anthem (400g/l pendimethalin) and Hurricane (500g/l diflufenican). The boxsets tested were:

• Proclus^® (aclonifen) + Liberator^® (flufenacet & diflufenican)
• Cinmethylin + pendimethalin 

(Proclus^® and Liberator^® are registered Trade Marks of Bayer)

Powering up with pendimethalin

The first set of trials – to assess the impact of adding pendimethalin to the aclonifen, flufenacet and diflufenican boxset – clearly demonstrated that the addition of Anthem enables growers to get more out of the Proclus and Liberator elements of the tank mix by significantly improving black-grass control: at six of eight independent trials (including work carried out by ADAS and NIAB), the inclusion of Anthem improved black-grass control by between 10 and 16%. The inclusion of pendimethalin was also seen to reduce the variability of black-grass control.

Additional observations at the trial sites showed that the four-way tank mix (aclonifen, flufenacet, diflufenican and pendimethalin) showed no obvious visual signs of phytotoxicity, but it was noted that drilling depth can affect crop vigour and reduce crop competition: where the crop was drilled too shallow, weed control was less favourable. It is therefore vital to respect the drilling depth guidance for the herbicides being used: for Proclus and Anthem, the recommendation is for ‘seed to be covered by a minimum of 32mm of settled soil’.

ANTHEM’s SC formulation outperforms standard CS formulations of pendimethalin when used as a tank mix partner to control black-grass

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 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 either of these herbicides could add extra power to your pre-emergence weed control programme, please contact the ADAMA technical helpline on 01635 876 622 and ask to be put in touch with your local Regional Agronomy Manager.

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.