The devil is in the detail with herbicide performance

Glyphosate is glyphosate, right?

Wrong, says Nufarm’s Joe Heng, business development manager for the upper North Island.

Particularly when you look not only at the number of salts contained in a glyphosate formulation, but also the length of time since they were initially discovered, which can date right back to the 1970s.

“Not all glyphosates on the market are the same, even if they do have a high load of active ingredient,” he says. “And with spring spray-out coming up, now’s a really good time to remind your farmers that there’s a lot of value in understanding the differences between them.”

He likens using an old, single-salt glyphosate to using a single-active drench:
“Most farmers don’t think twice about using a triple-active drench if they need it for parasite control, so why wouldn’t they use a triple-salt glyphosate?”

Developed in 2016, Crucial (Group 9) from Nufarm is the only triple-salt glyphosate formulation on the New Zealand market with a novel surfactant package.

That means it offers performance characteristics that older technology cannot, including improved compatibility, speed of activity, rainfastness when used with Pulse Penetrant and control of harder-to-kill weeds.

The differences extend to handling attributes as well, like pourability, viscosity and mixing.

Joe Heng says if you look at a timeline of glyphosate development, the first formulation marketed in the world featured an isopropylamine salt, and was launched in 1976.

Potassium salt formulations did not arrive in the local market until 2003.

Dual-salt glyphosate reached farmers in 2013 and it was only six years ago that Nufarm released the world’s first triple-salt formulation, comprising potassium and monoammonium salts plus the novel monomethylamine salt in Crucial.

“There are still several single isopropylamine salt formulation glyphosates in the New Zealand market, but that’s 50-year-old technology now.

“And the apparent savings in opting for these are outweighed by the costs of having to re-do a spray job if it doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to the first time.

“It’s false economy at best. You might save $2 a hectare in herbicide, only to have to spend much more to fix up a problem with crop or pasture establishment.”

With farmgate returns looking positive for many producers this season, it’s not worth taking a risk on any new planting that will generate tonnes of low cost, high quality homegrown feed in the months ahead, and that includes getting the right spray-out result at the right time.

“A fast, reliable kill at the outset makes the rest of the process run much more efficiently, and helps ensure a good outcome,” Heng points out.

This is especially the case if your farmers use minimum tillage or direct drilling to reduce soil disturbance:
“In these situations, it’s imperative they use the best option – they need their glyphosate formulation to do the job right the first time.”

Paddocks sprayed with Crucial can be grazed, cultivated or drilled just one day after treatment for annual weeds, and three days for perennial weeds, he adds.

That’s two to four days sooner than some other glyphosate formulations, meaning farmers can get crops established quicker with less downtime, and move onto other jobs sooner, knowing that if for some reason their plans change, they have extra leeway.

“Time is money for farmers, and getting the fastest possible turn-around at spring sowing is a great way to farm smarter, not harder, on a tight schedule,” he says.

Crucial helps achieve this in another important way – when applied as recommended with Pulse Penetrant, it carries a commercial performance guarantee of 15-minute rainfastness.

That sets a new benchmark in terms of flexibility and knowing the job is done properly even when conditions are unpredictable and challenging.