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United Kingdom - ‘Get out of jail’ herbicide for oilseed rape


United Kingdom
September 14, 2015

Farm manager Colin Woodward of the 4000 acre Great Tew Estates in the Cotswolds says that, when growing winter oilseed rape last September when it was so dry, he found that using a post-emergence herbicide instead of his usual pre-emergence co-formulation got him out of a difficult situation.  “It was a ‘get out of jail’ situation really,” he says.

Colin is manager of 900 hectares of arable land, with 210 hectares of oilseed rape grown last year.  “We grow rape 1 in 5 if we can. The varieties were hybrids DK Extrovert and Harper. Rape is normally drilled after winter barley and established using a one pass cultivator and drill. Last autumn all our rape was drilled within 4 days, 21 to 24 August. Then on the 25 August we had over 40mm of rain which meant that we were unable to apply the pre-em Katamaran Turbo (metazachlor + quinmerac+dimethenamid-p). The crop came up within a few days and this was followed by a very dry September. The main reason that we had to move to the post-emergence herbicide AstroKerb (propyzamide + aminopyralid) was purely because of the dry September. We felt we were between a rock and a hard place as we had some challenging weeds.”

“We had used some AstroKerb the year before and it had a fantastic effect on chickweed, corn marigold and black-grass. The poppies, which we think could be SU resistant, were the size of saucers and there were very few escapees. Our local Dow AgroSciences Business manager Roger Moore suggested we use AstroKerb this year. It controlled chickweed, mayweeds, thistles and crane’s-bill. Applied mid-November in mix with Proline (prothioconazole) for Phoma stem canker and Light Leaf spot control, it cleaned up the crop with virtually no broad-leaved weeds, with the exception of Shepherd’s purse. It is a good job we had it. Otherwise we would have been in trouble.”

Colin mentions that he has used Kerb followed by Galera (clopyralid + picloram) in the past for black-grass and thistles, but the new label for Galera has a restriction on beans in the rotation and no autumn usage which meant that he needed to look elsewhere. “AstroKerb sorted the thistles out late on.”

He mentions that the AstroKerb-treated crops were free of broad-leaved weeds and that it had a good effect on black-grass. “The crops looked the most even I have ever seen. I have had two years using AstroKerb now, with great results.”

Colin says that he also uses a fop/dim for volunteers and has used some clethodim (Centurion Max) where black-grass was a particular problem.

Roger Moore of Dow AgroSciences explains that AstroKerb can be used from the 1st of October up to before the 1st of February.  “It is important to use it when conditions are right for optimum performance. Soil temperatures at 30cm depth need to be down to at least 10ºC and falling. Good levels of soil moisture help distribute the herbicide in the top few cm of the soil. Germinating grass-weed seed should not come from any deeper than 5cm, as the black-grass would be germinating from below the zone where the propyzamide concentrations are high enough to give good levels of weed kill.”

“If application conditions are right, farmers can expect levels of black-grass control from AstroKerb frequently in excess of 90%, a level that very few herbicides are currently achieving in any other crop, plus excellent control of a wide range of broad-leaved weeds. Colin is trying to avoid using ALS inhibitor herbicides such as Atlantis in wheat, so if black-grass can be controlled in rape, all to the good,” he says.

Roger reminds growers that careful Stewardship of residual herbicides in rape is vital to ensure their long term availability.



More news from: Dow AgroSciences UK


Website: http://www.dowagro.com/uk/index.htm

Published: September 14, 2015

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