Herbicide-resistant weed are inching ever-closer to a potentially frightening saturation point here in the U.S.


Heading into 2016, USDA planting projections forecast U.S. corn growers to sow around 94 million acres of maize, with its rotation-buddy soybeans estimated to come in right around the 82 million acre mark. That puts total acreage for 2016 for the two most prolific row crops produced in the U.S. at 176 million acres total.

It goes to reason then, with current projections for herbicide-resistant weed acreage eclipsing 100 million in 2016 — meaning over 60% of major row crop fields in the U.S. are dealing with some form of herbicide-resistant weed, whether its PPO-resistant kochia out West or the mother of all herbicide resistant weeds, glyphosate-resistant Palmer amaranth in the Mid-South, that these yield robbing direct competitors to our bread-and-butter commodity crops will likely continue spreading throughout the countryside.

So, with more and more growers getting a taste of the war on weeds, many in geographies that prior to 2016 hadn’t quite felt the full sting of pigweed and marestail and the like, opportunities abound for the retail service provider tasked with helping growers start with and keep those fields clean. In fact, 71% of retailers that filled out the 2016 CropLife 100 survey saw their herbicide sales increase year-over-year in 2016.

And now, with Monsanto’s long-awaited dicamba formulation Xtendimax approved for over-the-top application in soybeans and cotton, and Dow AgroScience’s 2,4-D powered Enlist Duo expanding well beyond the 15 states approved for 2016 (not to mention Valent USA’s newest formulation Valor EZ and the exploding popularity of Syngenta’s Acuron corn herbicide product), this market segment has a lot to keep an eye on going into 2017.

Monsanto

Perhaps the most notable development in recent months in the herbicide space is the early-November EPA approval of the St. Louis, MO-based biotech giant’s Roundup Ready Xtendimax herbicide for post-emergence application in soybeans and cotton.

Ryan Rubischko, Monsanto’s North American dicamba lead, says what he deems a “significant milestone” approval shifts the company’s focus going forward to maximizing individual state label approvals for the 2017 growing season.

“We’ve been working on this approval for a number of years now, and it really was an EPA-driven process,” he says from the companies’ Creve Couer, MO, campus. “Now that we have the first phase of EPA approval in place, we’ll take all of our focus in working with the states (on approvals). In order for retailers to order Xtendimax that will require state approvals, and we’re confident we can obtain those approvals in time for the 2017 season.”

For that 2017 season Monsanto projects about 15 million acres of dicamba-tolerant soybeans to be planted, and around 3 million acres of Bollgard II XtendFlex Cotton.

Rubischko says the main concern many retailers are expressing around the two cropping systems — besides learning all of the application requirements — tend to focus on supply.

“We have extreme confidence that we will have adequate supply to cover those traited acres in 2017,” he ensures.

Of course, dicamba has been in the news a bit lately, for all the wrong reasons (see sidebar), but Monsanto remains confident its VaporGrip proprietary formulation technology and stringent label requirements will pave the way for a smooth transition to dicamba cropping systems alongside the growing trend of growers planting non-traited seeds to save on operating costs.

Dow AgroSciences

Dow AgroSciences’ new flagship cropping system, the Enlist weed control system features the 2,4-D-powered Enlist Duo herbicide, which is approved for over-the-top application in Enlist corn and soybeans in 15 states for 2017.

According to John Chase, Enlist commercial leader, the company plans on adding “many states” in time for the late-winter kickoff of the 2017 growing season.

Chase says the major differentiating point with Enlist Duo compared to the ubiquitous generic 2,4-D formulations readily available in the post-patent market is that Enlist Duo is a premix of 2,4-D choline and glyphosate (glyphosate targets grasses, while the 2,4-D takes care of broadleafs) and that the product doesn’t “salt out.” This attribute is a direct byproduct of the companies’ proprietary Colex-D technology.

“Sometimes some salt crystals in a given herbicide will fall out of the solution, and then there’ll be a crystal in it,” he explains. “Under certain circumstances, not always, that could happen to a traditional 2,4-D and glyphosate mix. Sometimes it has to do with temperature, where our formulation will not do that.”

Asked what would be the first thing he would tell a retailer with questions around the Enlist system and how it will fit into the production cycle in the Midwest, he points to a reduced potential for drift.

“First thing that I would tell the retailer is that, Enlist Duo herbicide has been designed to land and stay on target,” Chase explains. “I will always go back to those same attributes that I like to mention about the herbicide: it has minimized potential for physical drift – so up to 90% less drift over the traditional mixture of glyphosate and 2,4-D – but they have to use the right nozzle. It has a surprisingly low odor – guys will be surprised when they take the cap off the jug for the first time. And it gives retailers a choice – this is one of the first times retailers will have a choice in what they recommend beyond the Roundup Ready system.

“It’s about providing growers with a system that they are going to be able to use, and that’s workable,” he continues. “Nobody wants there to be off-target movement; that hurts neighbors. We distinctly want to launch a system that allows every opportunity for that application to be on target, because there are concerns about traditional 2,4-D moving off target via volatilization.”

Chase adds: “One thing that growers need to keep in mind is that we are still seeking import approval for some of the crops, and I expect that we’ll have import approval into China for Enlist corn for the 2017 season. From a soybean perspective it’s as early as ’17. The process is moving forward, but it is difficult to speculate on that timeline, to say with certainty whether or not they’ll be offered in 2017. Right now that’s the piece that we are missing, that we need to have implemented. We need to have those approvals in China for these crops to move forward and become commercialized.”

Syngenta

Debuting to its full contiguous U.S. and Canada market in 2016 after a limited launch in 2015, Syngenta claims it saw an almost three-fold increase in Acuron sales in 2016, with close to $200 million in sales in the first nine months alone.

Gordon Vail, herbicide technical product lead, has basically served as the face of the Acuron brand since its unveiling at the 2014 Commodity Classic in San Antonio. Vail admits he is pretty pumped for both Acuron (bicyclopyrone + atrazine) and the atrazine-free Acuron Flexi to continue making in-roads with growers in 2017.

“Those are some pretty big numbers,” Vail admits. “It’s going to be Syngenta’s number one corn herbicide; I’d say that’s pretty impressive that it became our most popular herbicide in under a year.”

In Vail’s mind, PPO-resistance proliferation, along with ongoing glyphosate resistance, are two big driving forces for Acuron adoption.

“I think it’s a combination, beyond glyphosate resistance now we’re also seeing a lot of PPO-resistance in soybeans,” he explains. “Soybeans in general, weed control is getting worse, and that’s putting more pressure on corn weed control. Right now in the Midwest it’s hard to find a field that doesn’t have waterhemp or lambsquarter, or even marestail.”

Perhaps another reason for increased Acuron uptake, beyond the resistant weed epidemic, is the switch of more acres to conventional non-GMO seed.

“Acuron fits really well in a conventional production system, because in a conventional system you have fewer options in post-emergence,” Vail says. “You can do a full rate of Acuron pre-emergence, and depending on weed pressures and rainfall, you may or may not need a post application. If you’re going to go conventional we recommend you do the most robust treatment up front, full rate.”

And just as growers look at conventional seeds as a cost-cutting measure, some are slashing herbicide rates in an effort to stretch the product across more acres. Not so fast, says Vail.

“Cutting rates is probably one of the most significant drivers of weed resistance,” he opines. “I think what drives it is they’ve gotten by with it in the past — guys have gotten by with half rates before — but it’s kind of like a light switch, one year it’s not a problem and then the next year you flip that switch and you’ve got a big mess on your hands.”

Valent U.S.A.

For 2017 Valent U.S.A.’s Eric Miller says the company will offer “the highest grower rebate ever with Valor EZ used on a Roundup Ready2 Xtend acre.”

Valor (flumioxazin) has been around for quite some time now, but the new liquid Valor EZ formulation was officially launched at the 2016 Farm Progress Show in Boone, IA.

“Valor EZ comes in a liquid formulation and it is much easier for the retailer and grower to mix and load this herbicide — mainly dicamba — when we think about the coming Xtend system, we feel that Valor EZ has an excellent fit within that system as the preferred residual,” Miller explains.

No-till growers looking to limit the amount of passes across the field – both for economic reasons as well as agronomic (less compaction) are a main target audience for Valor EZ, according to Miller. Those same growers will benefit from their burndown application also including the residual of Valor EZ, with no planting intervals on an Xtend traited acre, according to the company.

“In an Xtend system, a no-till grower can apply the residual and the burn down in one pass, with the dicamba providing the burndown and the Valor EZ giving growers four to six weeks of residual,” he says. “The hope is that the no-till grower goes out to the field with a single pass and can achieve burndown and apply residual at the same time.”

Another interesting tidbit around Valor EZ is its low-use rate.

“This product has a two ounce per acre use rate, which is the same as the granular formulation, however it’s much more concentrated, so one, two and a half gallon container will treat 160 acres vs. one, five pound container of the granular formulation treating 40 acres,” Miller shares. “So less jugs, less waste, and less product to lug around.”

Growers and retailers no longer have to pre-slurry their Valor, Miller adds. “Valor in the past had been in a granular formulatoin. Now that it is in a liquid, there’s no pre-slurry required.”

Valent also recently announced an expansion of its joint crop inputs financing program with John Deere Financial, which will include Valor EZ for the 2017 season.