Between this year’s harvest and next spring’s planting, winter annual weeds can take over fields, but a fall burndown application can knock down weeds and set up growers for a strong 2011 crop.

Eliminating winter annuals with a fall burndown provides four major benefits to growers, according to the University of Illinois Extension and Dr. Dan Westberg, technical market manager for BASF:

   1. Provides growers the opportunity for an earlier planting date, which gives crops more time to maximize their yield potential.

   2. Helps growers spread out their workload and manage planting with greater flexibility in the spring.

   3. A cleaner field allows soils to warm up more quickly in the spring.

   4. A cleaner field limits fertilizer loss to winter annual weeds, helping to protect fertilizer investments and gain yield benefits.

“Growers can get even more flexibility in the spring by using Sharpen herbicide, powered by Kixor herbicide technology, for fall burndown,” says Dr. Westberg. “At its burndown use rate, Sharpen has no planting restrictions the following spring. As a result, growers can change their cropping plan in the spring to adapt to changes in weather and market opportunities.”

Kixor controls more than 70 broadleaf weeds, including a number of winter annuals that establish themselves in the fall and are becoming increasingly resistant to traditional herbicide chemistries.

Marestail is a winter annual that can be especially difficult to control in the spring – particularly if wet or cold weather delays timely spring applications. Additionally, glyphosate and/or ALS resistant marestail are common in many fields.

In fact, a BASF survey found that 45% of growers polled list marestail as a top threat in their fields. Kixor provides effective control of marestail, making it an invaluable tool growers can use to manage resistant weeds.

“A fall burndown application is an excellent resistance management tool because it gives growers another opportunity to bring a different mode of action to bear on their weed populations,” Dr. Westberg says.