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Help Your Weed Control Stay Where It's Sprayed

03/09/2010 15:43PM

Summer is the season for watching calves and crops thrive. Keeping a few pointers in mind can help ensure that happens.

One of the factors that makes Milestone®, GrazonNext™ and new Chaparral™ herbicides such valuable land-management tools is the nonvolatile nature of aminopyralid. However, it’s an advantage that comes with responsibility. In many cases, that responsibility begins with understanding the difference between volatility and drift.

“Aminopyralid products are practically nonvolatile, meaning they won’t form vapors and move after application,” explains Pat Burch, a field scientist with Dow AgroSciences. “But these, or any product applied in a liquid, still are vulnerable to drift.” Simply put, drift means the product can physically move through the air at the time of application to a site other than that intended for application.

Help Your Weed Control Stay Where It's Sprayed

As with any pesticide, aminopyralid products require care during application to prevent drift onto nontarget sites and plants. Aminopyralid-sensitive crops include cotton, sunflowers, tobacco, cucurbits, strawberries, potatoes, sugarbeets, flowers, grapes, legumes (including soybeans and peanuts) and vegetable crops (including tomatoes, peppers and eggplant). Nontarget sites include land that will be planted to sensitive crops within 12 months.

“It is important that you take time to review the product labels, specifically the sections on Precautions for Avoiding Spray Drift,” Burch says. “Aminopyralid products should not be applied under conditions that may allow spray drift onto sensitive crops or onto sites where these crops will be planted within the next 12 months.”

Conditions under which aminopyralid products should not be applied include, but are not limited to:

• Wind speeds faster than 10 miles per hour (or according to state regulations) or slower than 2 miles per hour

• Use of a high spray pressure, which greatly increases the number of small or fine droplets that are more likely to drift

• Applying when temperatures are favorable (cooler at ground level than the air above it) for air inversion

Additionally, aerial applications require a 50-foot buffer downwind and applications must be made in a way that spray is not allowed to come in contact with any sensitive crops or land where any of these species will be planted.

“There are a lot of factors to consider when planning a herbicide application on rangeland and pastures,” Burch says. “By taking time to become familiar with surroundings and environmental conditions and making informed decisions ahead of time, you can help ensure success.”

Source: Dow Agrosciences