New Products For Rice Farmers

DR. BOB SCOTT 

LONOKE, ARKANSAS

In 2018, I left weed science completely and went into administration with the Division of Agriculture.   At that time, I must admit I was a little depressed by the bleak outlook for new herbicide chemistry for agriculture and especially in rice.  I was very surprised on my return to find out that there was so much development work going on in rice and other crops.  We have 6-7 new herbicides or herbicide concepts in our programs as we speak.  Unfortunately, the road to EPA registration is long and some of this technology may not be available anytime soon, while others are closer.

TVE29 is the experimental name or number of a new herbicide for rice.  It is in fact a completely new mode of action, the first in over 30 years!  It is classified as a Group 28 by the Weed Science Society of America (WSSA) or HRAC grouping number system.  Group 28 herbicides are Triketones (procide) and kill weeds by inhibiting the plant enzyme dihydroorotate dehydrogenase.  Big words.  Here is one more.  The active ingredient in TVE29 is Tetflupyrolimet (tet-flu-pyro-lim-et).  While the trade name has not been announced yet, FMC has released a trade name for the active its Dodhylex™ Active.  

I am excited to see a new product for rice farmers.  This one is important if for no other reason than it has good activity on barnyardgrass.  This will give us a new tool to fight herbicide resistance to this weed in rice.  Dodhylex™ active will be applied preemergence to rice and in sequential residual applications POST, however it only has residual activity.  It is an excellent tank-mix partner with Command 3ME® microencapsulated herbicide and in fact at this time it has been announced that it will only be available in a Co-Pak with Command 3ME® microencapsulated herbicide.  I agree with FMC’s decision to launch this product as a Co-Pak, even though I normally would not.  Dodhylex™ active has a narrow spectrum of activity.  It basically will control barnyardgrass, sprangletop, large crabgrass and has some suppression of broadleaf signalgrass, so it is really not a stand-alone residual product anyway.

We had research plots that began this year with various rates of Command 3ME® microencapsulated herbicide in combination with various rates of Dodhylex™ active or TVE29 applied PRE, we had excellent conditions for residual activity and in many of these trials found ourselves waiting on treatments to “break” so that we could apply the planned follow-up POST treatments.  I do not know what rate structure will be labeled, but I am confident that it will look good if given enough rainfall for activation.  I am also excited to have another option for row-rice farmers to use POST for extending residual control where no flood is established.  We also had a number of treatments in row rice this summer and saw a lot of clean plots there as well.

I am sure there will be much more to come on TVE29 once it receives a full registration and I will plan on following up with a more detailed article.

The Division of Agriculture is part of the University of Arkansas System.  The research mentioned in this article is partially funded by both the Arkansas Rice Research and Promotion Board and FMC Corporation, we are grateful for their support.   ∆

DR. BOB SCOTT: University of Arkansas