New herbicide enters small grains market

JOHNSTON, Iowa — Tolvera, a new herbicide to control broadleaf and grasses in winter wheat and other small grains, was used across over 1 million acres in its first year in the marketplace.

The Corteva product contains the active ingredients tolpyralate, a Group 27 HPPD-inhibiting herbicide, and bromoxynil, a Group 6 photosynthesis II inhibitor herbicide, to combat the spread of resistant weeds. Tolpyralate is an active ingredient new to the cereals market.

The herbicide is registered in most states, including Illinois and Indiana, and provides tank-mix flexibility in both application and crop rotation.

“One of the key problems we’ve been battling in small grains, winter wheat, spring wheat, triticale, sorghum, barley, you name it, lot of times, it’s the same conversation — overuse of chemistry,” Grant Harms, Corteva technical field agronomist, said at the company’s recent Summer Media Day.

“There’s three chemistries that are starting to have concerns in small grains production. We’ve been relying on Group 1, Group 2 and Group 4 chemistries for a long time.

“One of the key benefits of Tolvera herbicide is new chemistry. Tolpyralate, which is a Group 27 HPPD product, is new to the small grains production cycle. This has not been used. This is a brand new site of action.”

Among the weeds controlled by the Group 27 herbicide are green and yellow foxtail, kochia, tall waterhemp, pigweed, narrowleaf hawksbeard, lambsquarter, amaranth, henbit, thistles, common and giant ragweed, among others.

“There’s a pretty wide spectrum of weeds with Tolvera, but if you hone in on why you might use Tolvera for, it’s green and yellow foxtail, kochia, pigweed and waterhemp,” Harms said.

Herbicide resistance built up in weeds over the years, necessitating the need for tank mixes as just one product couldn’t be relied on.

“In general, we could never get waterhemp. We always had to add 2,4-D or something that had efficacy on waterhemp. This product has efficacy on waterhemp, and it really allows us to enter those markets where we couldn’t enter in the past,” Harms said.

Rotation Flexibility

Besides the weed control benefits, Tolvera also offers a nine-month rotational flexibility for most crops, including soybeans, alfalfa, and sorghum; a three-month rotation interval for oats; and no rotation interval for corn, wheat and barley.

“Historically, with a lot of the chemistries, we couldn’t do that. This opens up rotation for farmers. If you’re looking at rotating, but you can’t because you think you need to use a certain chemistry to control a certain weed, you can now rotate,” Harms said.

Tank Mixes

As an emulsifiable concentrate formulation, Tolvera herbicide is tank-mix-friendly and compatible with many grass and broadleaf herbicides, including Quelex herbicide with Arylex active, OpenSky herbicide, Pixxaro EC herbicide with Arylex active, Stinger HL herbicide or Tarzec herbicide with Arylex active from the Corteva Agriscience cereal portfolio.

Growers can apply Tolvera herbicide to spring and winter wheat, durum and barley starting at the one-leaf stage all the way up through the jointing phase.

This provides growers a wide window to apply the product and achieve maximum control of actively growing weeds less than 4 inches tall.