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How adjuvants can boost post emergent herbicides and increase rainfastness

Around Australia farmers are currently spraying their winter crops for weeds. Spraying in winter often means battling with rain and wondering whether adjuvants are worth the cost.

In this month’s article, we’ll explore how we dramatically increase the rainfastness of an EC herbicide using an adjuvant.

Glyphosate and the Effect of Hard Water

Last year I interviewed one of our formulation chemists for an article about the effect that hard water has on agchems.  This article generated a lot of interest and we received a lot of questions, mostly about hard water and its effect on glyphosate efficacy.  There is still a lot of confusion around the effect hard water has on glyphosate and how the addition of ammonium sulphate works.

Trifluralin – How it really works Part 2

In Part 1 of this series we explained how:

  • trifluralin stops weed growth by inhibiting the division of cells at the root tip,
  • trifluralin vapour moves very short distances through soil and so vapour movement won’t compensate for poor application,
  • trifluralin is primarily absorbed into grasses through the roots rather than the coleoptile and so is far more potent when applied to the weed’s root zone,
  • volatilisation can cause the loss of more than 60% of applied trifluralin and,
  • studies have shown that trifluralin loses due to UV degradation have been low, generally less than 5% even under high UV conditions.

In this article we will review how soil type and soil pH affects the efficacy of trifluralin.  

Trifluralin – How it really works Part 1

Trifluralin is one of the most widely used herbicides in Australia.  Despite it being in use since the 1970s, it is surprising how many myths exist around how it works.  Eureka! has conducted dozens of experiments with trifluralin.  Over the next couple of newsletters I will share some of our findings with you.  In this article I will cover how trifluralin kills weeds, its movement through the soil as a gas, where it is absorbed into the plant and the proportion that is lost to volatilisation and UV degradation.  Please note that the scientific methods used in the experiments described here are too lengthy for this article.  If you want more information on them please contact me.