Products Cereals Special Other Crop Specials

Crop Special - Cereals

A guide to the timing and use of adjuvants in cereals

grass-weeds

Problems

  • Grass weeds compete for nutrients and moisture.
  • Minimum tillage creates the ideal conditions for grass-weed seeds to germinate.
  • Frequent and competitive grass-weeds in cereals are black-grass, wild-oats, rye-grass and sterile brome.

Black-grass

  • Black-grass is the Number 1 weed in cereals, being found in 30 different counties and on 80% of all arable farms.
  • It is the most competitive weed (30 plants/m2 can reduce yields by 0.5t/ha and 100 plants/m2 by 1 t/ha).
  • Resistant black-grass is now endemic in the UK with an increasing number of confirmed sites. Target site resistance has been identified on 40% of farms.
High risk conditions are:
Winter sown crops
Heavy land
Minimal cultivations

Wild-oats

  • Wild-oats are one of the most pernicious weeds, substantially reducing yields and quality.
  • Only 10 wild-oats/m2 can reduce wheat yields by 1 t/ha.
High risk conditions are:
Continuous cereal growing
Light land

Brome

  • Brome grasses (sterile and soft) are a problem in arable crops and often encroach into the field from infested headlands.
  • Bromes are very competitive - just 5 plants/m2 causing a 1 tonne yield loss.
  • Each brome plant can produce over 500 seeds per panicle and so even 1 plant/m2 can lead to a problem in following years.
High risk conditions are:
Continuous cereals
Minimal cultivation

Solutions

  • Effective containment of black-grass requires a programmed approach, with the aim of achieving the highest control level possible. Control of at least 95% is essential in order to reduce the problem.
  • Many growers start their control programme early by applying a pre-emergence treatment of Crystal/Ice (flufenacet + pendimethalin), Avadex (triallate), trifluralin or pendamethalin.
  • These treatments need to be followed up with a highly effective early post-emergence, contact spray of a graminicide such as Lexus, Hawk, Amazon or pendimethalin mixes together with the methylated rape seed oil, Toil.
  • Black-grass plants are difficult to hit with their spiky small leaves and there is a need to increase the contact activity of the herbicide.

Toil adds the necessary consistency and can elevate black-grass control levels by an extra 4-5% - essential if growers are to get on top of this problem.

  • Better delivery, better weed coverage and uptake of contact wild-oat herbicides, such as Topik or Cheetah Super, are key to effective control of wild-oats.
  • Toil gives greater spray deposition and better penetration of the target leaf, thereby improving herbicide uptake by the ‘difficult to wet’ wild-oat plant.
  • Toil will enhance the performance of all spring wild-oat herbicides for wheat.
Toil:
• aids spray deposition, improving adhesion to the spiky, waxy weed target
• improves penetration and uptake of the herbicide into the target weed
• reduces any spray drift by reducing the number of fine droplets
• can be used with a range of herbicides across the seasons

 

An ALS inhibitor, Attribut (a.i propoxy-carbazone-sodium) is a herbicide for the control of couch, onion couch, brome and black-grass in winter wheat and it must be used with Arma for best effect.

Weed Control
Attribut and Arma

Monitor (a.i sulfosulfuron) is active against brome, couch, cleavers and other broad-leaved weeds in winter wheat. Monitor relies on an adjuvant for full activity. Arma improves its efficacy and consistency.

In sterile brome trials Monitor plus Arma gave over 80% control of this difficult weed, compared to 74% control with Monitor plus Agral.

Weed Control
Monitor and Arma

© Interagro (UK) Ltd 2005, 2006, 2007. All trade marks acknowledged. READ THE LABEL BEFORE YOU BUY. USE PESTICIDES SAFELY