Beet and cereal spray clash likely

By Martin Rickatson

31/03/2010

A flexible strategy for weed control in sugar beet crops will help to ease this spring’s arable workload in light of the backlog created by delayed combinable crop spray programmes, according to agronomists and agchem companies

.Agrovista’s Mark Hemmant says wet conditions through January and February largely prevented the spraying of winter cereal and oilseed rape crops that growers would normally have completed by the time beet crops are drilled.

“Catching up on arable spray work - particularly spring herbicides and T0 fungicides - is now likely to clash with the timing of first herbicide sprays on beet crops,” he predicts. “A flexible strategy, based on Betanal Expert (desmedipham + ethofumesate + phenmedipham), will help growers to ease this workload pressure and work around periods when conditions are not suitable for spraying.

"Last April and May, cool and windy conditions encouraged weed leaves to wax up and limited the number of spray days available. Growers deploying Betanal Expert mixes had greater flexibility to accommodate delays and still get reliable control of larger weeds with crop safety.

“Following the very cold winter, which will have helped break the dormancy of cleavers and polygonum species like redshank, knotgrass and black bindweed, large flushes of weeds are to be expected this spring. Growers using Betanal Expert based programmes will also be best placed to get on top of these difficult weed species."

Bayer’s Neil Thompson claims that Betanal Expert’s AMD (Advanced Micro Droplet) formulation technology is behind much of its effiacy and flexibility. The active ingredients and special formulants are coated in vegetable oil to create highly active spray droplets. This ensures faster and longer lasting weed control than with standard SC formulations.