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Cotton Technologies
Treatments Require Management To Curb Weeds In Cotton
Treatments Require Management To Curb Weeds In Cotton
BETTY VALLE GEGG-NAEGER
MidAmerica Farmer Grower
JACKSON, TENN.
New and old cotton technologies and their usefulness were reviewed recently by Dr. Larry Steckel, University of Tennessee extension research weed specialist. The new technologies are actually based on the old, he said, some of which have been around for 40-50 years. None of these new technologies are labeled yet.
The first technology he discussed was the herbicide Brake F2 that is awaiting a section 18 designation in Tennessee.
Dr. Larry Steckel, University of Tennessee extension research
weed specialist reviews new and old cotton technologies.
Photo by John LaRose, Jr.
“This is a preemergence herbicide that is a pre-mix of fluridone which is a similar herbicide to Zorial and Fomesafen,” he explained. “It can be put out preplant, and in our research these last couple of years it’s provided very good residual control at least as good as many of our other premixes like Cotoran/Caparol. It also has a very good environmental profile since the herbicide fluridone can be used in water very safely so there’s a lot of big plusses to it.
“One of the considerations going forward though is the price right out of the gate is going to be pretty expensive,” Steckel said. “I think folks are going to have to adjust to that. The other thing is just very limited acres. There’s going to be a large research trial this year just doing a few thousand acres here in the state to get a feel for it, and then maybe we’ll see how pricing goes from there.”
There also are newer traits on the horizon that will be out in a few years from now. The dicamba trait from Monsanto, the Roundup Extend as they call it, these will give cotton tolerance to dicamba, glufosinate and glyphosinate. Then a competitor from Dow, the Enlist technology, is going to give cotton tolerance to 2,4D, glufosinate and glyphosinate.
Steckel touched on the big plusses with these traits.
“This will give us some very much needed new tools to help us manage these glyphosate resistant weeds, particularly Palmer pigweed; but they’re not going to be a panacea, they’re not going to be as easy as what we used to do in a number of ways. Number one, they really don’t have a good option there for our glyphosate resistant grass species; we’re going to have to manage those like we have in the past with just some traditional herbicides; and number two, just the stewardship of them. It’s going to be very important that we apply them correctly with the right spray tips, volume, boom height, wind speed, those kinds of things, so they stay where we put them. If we do those things I think we can manage them but it is going to take more management than it did in the past, particularly back when Roundup was there.”
He added that ten years ago Roundup was the ‘“easy button” like you see on the Staples commercial.
“The easy button is gone. We’re going to have new technologies that are really going to help us on pigweed control, but they’re not going to be easy. They’re going to have to be stewarded, not only to use them well, correctly and safely in the field, but to manage them so they’re effective on pigweed from here on out,” Steckel summed. ∆
BETTY VALLE GEGG-NAEGER: Senior Staff Writer, MidAmerica Farmer Grower
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