Acuron delivers answers for season-long weed control

MARKLE, Ind. — At the end of a growing season, farmers have questions. Chad Threewits, Syngenta agronomy service representative for Indiana, said some of the most important questions are the ones that farmers can ask themselves — and answer.

“I always encourage growers — at the end of the season and from the combine is the best time to do this — as we are going through fields, make notes. Look at what worked,” Threewits said. “Ask yourself: ‘If I have weeds, why are they there? Is it because of the product I used? Is it because of the weather? Did I plant early and the weeds got too big? Even though I sprayed, I didn’t get them all killed. Did I plant early, spray and then didn’t get any rain for a month?’”

One corn herbicide product that can answer many of the questions and concerns that growers face with their weed control program is Acuron®.

“All of those issues and challenges, they require a product that has some good flexibility, that has the residual to fit different programs. I think now is a great time, as we look toward 2022, to be thinking about those things,” Threewits said.

Weeds were a challenge for farmers in Indiana this year, and they were a challenge from early in the growing season.

“We started the year, and a lot of the weeds were hard to kill early,” Threewits said.

When Threewits has those discussions with growers about weeds, at the top of the list is waterhemp. While waterhemp has been a plague in soybean fields, in 2021, Threewits has found himself having another conversation about the top weed of concern.

“Waterhemp continues to be a real driver. We’ve always talked about it in soybeans, but I’ve had more conversations than ever this year about waterhemp in corn,” Threewits said.

Additional factors, including weather and a planting season that started earlier than usual for many farmers, made for a perfect storm for farmers and agronomists battling waterhemp in fields.

“I had waterhemp emerging the first week of May in Indiana. That was as early as I’ve ever seen it. Waterhemp was everywhere. You could not drive around to fields without seeing it. A lot of my calls on corn were about the weather and when we could get applications on. Sometimes we got behind, so we were out trying to kill big weeds with products that couldn’t do it,” Threewits said.

Shortages of popular products that would normally be used to kill waterhemp meant that growers were faced with rationing supplies on hand or trying to find alternatives. As they sought solutions, the waterhemp kept growing.

“Glyphosate was short, glufosinate was short, so growers were trying to find other products to put on and they couldn’t find products to do it,” Threewits said.

In addition, other weeds, especially large-seeded broadleaf weeds, continued their march through fields.

“The other problems this year were the giant ragweed, morning glory, burcucumber, those large-seeded weeds germinate from down deep and when we plant early, that makes it that much harder to control some of those weeds because our products have to last longer,” Threewits said.

Threewits said Acuron, with four active ingredients and three effective sites of action, has the firepower to do the job across the weed spectrum.

“That’s where Acuron really shines, is on those large-seeded weeds. Having that residual and the spectrum that Acuron has, the active ingredients are effective not only on grass and small-seeded broadleaves, like waterhemp, but really, really effective on the morningglory, the giant ragweed, cocklebur, those really troublesome weeds we see, especially when we are planting early,” Threewits said.

With farmers adopting more flexibility when it comes to planting dates for corn and with many farmers planting corn earlier than they ever have, Acuron meets that changed planting calendar with its own flexibility. That is a flexibility that can be adapted to fit with whatever timeline the farmer chooses.

“We are pushing folks more toward going to a two-pass program. Acuron can be used as a one-pass pre, but we can do a split application, put half on pre and half on post. That really works good as far as spreading that product out, so we have multiple sites of action pre- and post-emergence on weeds,” Threewits said.

With Acuron and that two-pass program, farmers can provide season-long weed control across a broad spectrum of weeds.

“As we get into heavy pressure and resistant weeds, that is really an effective management strategy. In case we miss something on the pre-emerge, we can come in and clean that and layer those residuals. That is one strategy we use in soybeans a lot and it is very effective in corn,” Threewits said.

That flexibility is especially important when Threewits considers years like this one.

“The nice thing about Acuron, all four of those ingredients can be applied pre-emerge, post-emerge, after the corn is up and up to 12-inch corn. That gives us flexibility. If we can get in to plant and if we can’t get the herbicide applications on right away because of rain, we have a window there to get this product applied. We can’t do that with every product on the market,” Threewits said.

© 2021 Syngenta. Important: Always read and follow label instructions. Some products may not be registered for sale or use in all state or counties. Please check with your local extension service to ensure registration status. Acuron is a Restricted Use Pesticide. Acuron® is a registered trademark of a Syngenta Group Company. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

This column was contributed by Indiana AgriNews for Syngenta.