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Bayer Assist

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Ever since the launch of Atlantis® WG Bayer has promoted stewardship as a major requirement to safeguard the performance of the product for as long as possible. As grass weed (and especially black-grass) control becomes more challenging we need to make sure we continue to promote the whole spectrum of the control strategy, and not just to focus on the product.

While we are all aware of the components of a successful grass weed control strategy, there is still a responsibility to drive the messages right through to farm level and to get buy in from the decision makers and people applying the product on farm.

To help achieve this we have drawn the key elements of stewardship together under the banner of PoCKET. The aim of this is to renew the focus on the additional elements that make up a successful approach to grass weed control within Bayer and with our customers, providing a banner under which we can operate in the whole market.

...is a five-point plan highlighting the areas where growers must make important considerations to preserve the effectiveness and robustness of their autumn weed control programmes.

Growers must be familiar with their weed populations on-farm. Utilise resistance testing to understand the profile of unexplainable survivors after herbicide programmes. If you know the resistance profile you're dealing with, you can select the most appropriate programmes, active ingredients and rates.

While some cultural control methods may seem expensive in the min-till age, a return to options such as ploughing, longer crop rotations, spring cropping, higher seed rates and competitive cultivars - and the ultimate fallow/total herbicide fallback - should be considered where difficult weed populations have developed. The HGCA guide 'Managing weeds in an arable rotation', which was launched at Cereals, gives excellent advice in this area.

It's essential that growers and their advisors are fully aware of the range of active ingredients suitable for their situation. Planning a robust programme - which for the best results starts with a pre-em product containing flufenacet (which is less affected by resistance than other herbicides) - is essential.

Application techniques are crucial if growers are to squeeze every last drop of performance from modern herbicides. Boom height, spray quality, water volume, forward speed and to always use biopower with Atlantis WG are factors which are as important as product choice. The overriding aim of the post-emergence application must be to apply to a dry leaf in conditions that allow the spray to dry on the target plant.

Of particular importance for Atlantis WG; 2010 has been yet another year in which the importance of making early applications cannot be understated. Weather will always upset even the best-laid programme plans, but spring applications will always place greater pressure on Atlantis WG due to larger weeds, as well as increasing the risk of crop damage from soft growth and fluctuating day/night temperatures. If you wait until the spring, yield loss will already have occurred.

With no new effective post-emergence black-grass herbicide on the horizon, it is increasingly important that growers continue to be encouraged to adopt the strategies outlined in the PoCKET plan - both to maintain the effectiveness of Atlantis WG and the substainability of wheat production.

® Atlantis and Liberatorare registered trademarks of Bayer.Atlantis contains mesosuluron-methyl and iodosulfuron-methyl-sodium.Liberator contains flufenacet and diflufenican.ALWAYS READ THE LABEL: USE PESTICIDES SAFELY© Bayer CropScience 2010